A Living Vivid Dream
by NaaNana
Summary: Since the death of her sister, Aislinn Riggs's lived with her family in a small village of Sheelow. But when a cheeky tramp called Tyki and his human friends end up staying in their house for a few days, the lives of a human girl and a Noah get entwined..
1. Prologue

I've never really understood the true nature of human.

Not even after having so many friends and family around me. What we do will inevitably have an impact on our lives, yet how we live our lives can have absolutely no meaning when the Grim Reaper suddenly appears.

My sister, Bryanna, was an Exorcist, believe it or not. She was 7 years older than I am, but never took me as a child compared to herself, unlike our older brother, young priest apprentice Evan, did.

When I turned 15, my sister married a fellow Exorcist called Denzel. They had visited us fairly often despite their busy and rather dangerous work tasks before appearing on our porch on one sunny summer morning and telling they had got married.

Denzel was from an aristocratic home, so our parents were, of course, pleased although shocked for the sudden news. Our parents didn't know to be afraid for the sakes of the two of them. They didn't know both Denzel and Bryanna worked as Exorcists, only I did.

Bryanna had let me in on her secret powers ever since she had realized she possessed them. We were sisters and best friends, and when she was 16 this power, or Innocence, as she called it later on, emerged. She saved someone's life from the clutches of a demon, Akuma, that appeared in the outskirts of our hometown Sheelow. Bryanna's palms were able to cast blue fire – and after her first demon killing, she was found and taken care of by other of her kind, other Exorcists.

I was happy when she was given the opportunity to help others, for I knew she loved doing that. When she was let to visit us for the first time with Denzel, I learnt that she had also found the love of her life among them. I thought they were perfectly suited for each other.

I was always too immature to be worried about my sister and my new brother-in-law.

It all turned around, ironically, on another summer morning, a little over a year after Bryanna and Denzel had got married. My brother-in-law appeared to our yard in black, holding a delicate wooden urn in his gloved hands. I was the only one at home at the time, and he had known this.

I was not supposed to know about Bryanna's death, he told me after I had calmed down and we were sitting alone in our kitchen. But Denzel had felt that I was able to take it, that I had the right to know, and for that I was forever grateful for him. Together, we walked to a nearby hill with a view over Sheelow, and together we threw the ashes into the air and let the wind blow them away. I was sixteen years old yet cried like a little child. Denzel, who was sensitive enough not to show his pain to me despite it being very visible in his eyes, held me close and comforted me.

Bryanna would be in the clouds, he said softly. She would be in the stars, in the rain, in the snow, everywhere, and she would always look after us and my family.

After Denzel left Sheelow, I decided to never tell about Bryanna to my other family members. In the end, it was Evan, who found out from a priest collaegue of his that Bryanna had died from a mysterious disease and incinerated in the city of Gallouse.

My parents blamed Denzel, who had disappeared into thin air, for everything. I blamed myself for never worrying over Bryanna.

Seven years passed, and the pain was not forgotten, but it definitely softened in our hearts. We were able to talk about Bryanna without moving ourselves into tears. We were able to talk about Bryanna and laugh. Because that was life; unexpected in both good and bad. I thought that by my sister's death, I had come to understand life in exchange.


	2. Part 1

"Phew! This sure doesn't look too good," Momo groaned as he and three of his companions were walking down the main street of a small town called Sheelow. "There are big and thick and small and fragile shards and branches of wood scattered everywhere!"

"I bet it's the storm that raged a couple of days ago," said Clark. "And the poor town got the worst of it, being pretty close to the ocean and all that."

Tyki Mikk was hardly even listening to the two of them, and whenever he noticed that he was thinking of work, of his Noah duties, he frowned behind his thick glasses. What was the point of turning into a human when all he could think about was destruction.

He didn't say it out loud, but he secretly enjoyed seeing the city in the state that it was in now after the thunder storm. Trees of every size had fallen over across the streets and onto the houses as far as the eye could see. Thousands of red tiles, fallen from the rooftops, were scattered all over the ground as if someone had jumped from roof to roof and thrown them there. Small stones and other loose items such as garbage cans and flower pots had smashed windows, lampposts and even the thinner layers of wood on some of the buildings' walls.

Tyki found himself wondering if there had been any human losses.

"It might be hard to find any work from the mines here, fellows," Momo mused out loud.

"But we can still do some small tasks in exchange for a place to stay and some nice hot meal," Tyki finally took part on the conversation. "I know I'm starving, and my feet could use a rub."

His buddies agreed with a nod.

"Better find an inn or something," Clark suggested.

"Or rich people," mumbled Eaze behind his mouth mask. Tyki tousled the little boy's hair with an accepting grin.

"The kid's got a point. Rich people don't want to stain their hands, so they will most likely give us some work, even if it cost them."

Momo snorted. "How are we supposed to find any rich people in the middle of all this... junk."

Tyki sneered. "By finding the biggest house nearby, of course!"

The biggest house they found was not exactly that big: it had two floors and a wide, now junk-covered yard, but it looked like it hadn't been maintained that well. The mint-colored paint was stripping off from the walls, and a few of the windows were broken.

"A haunted house," said Eaze indifferently. Momo and Clark didn't look too impressed either.

However, Tyki had had enough of sightseeing, and wasn't going to turn away even if the house owner had been a ghost.

"We can always camp inside, if no one lives in there," he pointed out, sounding more cheerful than he actually felt, and despite the obviously sullen faces of his comrades they all followed him to the dusty front porch.

The door was opened in a matter of seconds after Tyki had knocked it. They were dumbfounded by the person who opened; it was a young girl, not that much older or taller than Eaze, who was standing practically in front of her.

She had big dark eyes and chestnut brown hair, and she gazed at the men with curiousity.

"Little girl," Tyki was the first to talk, "might your parents be home at the moment?"

The little girl shook her head, big clear eyes now fixated on Tyki's face.

He didn't know how to continue after that.

"H-How about any other relatives?" asked Momo this time, and Tyki, judging by the tone of his friend's voice, guessed that Momo found the quiet and slightly manic stare of the little girl more or less creepy.

But the girl didn't manage to answer this time, since they all heard next another voice talking: more mature female voice.

"Aileen, who is it?"

The little girl opened the door enough for the other person to see who were standing on the porch, and for the men to see what kind of a woman was living in a shabby house like this with the maniacally staring girl.

This time, it was an adult, but a young female adult. Not far over twenty, guessed Tyki.

"Hello," the woman said, looking at the men and the kid one by one. She had dark eyes, like the little girl called Aileen had, but the hint of blue in them was more visible. "How can I help you good sirs?"

"Hello, Miss. We are travellers passing through the town and noticed that people might need some help, you know, cleaning the streets and their yards," Tyki explained, trying to sound as carefree as possible, "and we're wondering if you ladies had any work for us."

"In exchange for some food and shelter?" the woman asked with a small smile.

"That'd be very kind of you, Miss," Tyki said with a clumsy little bow. As he straightened himself

up, he noticed the woman was holding something behind the door.

"You do realize that we are not that rich?" she asked suddenly. "The worn-out paint on our walls is not a trick to mislead robbers."

Tyki frowned.

Ah. She thought they might be robbers trying to make use of the damages done by the storm.

Well, she wasn't entirely wrong.

However, it was slightly impressing that she managed to keep a light and even joking tone in her voice, as she continued, "Our parents are currently in downtown with our brothers, but they'll be back shortly. If you are ordinary robbers, I'd suggest the western part of the city."

"Is that so."

"W-we are no robbers, Miss!" exclaimed Clark, turning the woman's attention away from Tyki and to him. "We swear, we are simply looking for some work for a couple of days!"

Tyki watched the woman's reaction behind his thick glasses unnoticed; She tilted her head lightly and narrowed her eyes, scanning through them all as if trying to see deep into the travellers' souls. Her eyes stopped at Tyki. He grinned good-willingly like a simple-minded hobo he was.

"Very well," she agreed. "If you help us clear the yard and fix the windows... And some other small damages the storm caused, you'll each get your own clean mattress and a blanket, a roof on top of you and three meals per day. Sound any good?"

"Sounds better than good!" Tyki rejoiced with his companions. "Does this mean we can come in now, Miss?"

"Of course." The woman pulled the young silent girl aside as she held the door open for the men.

The hallway was tidy and cozy, with light yellow wallpapers and family paintings hanging on the walls. Dark wooden stairs led to the second floor. They were waxed and clean of dust.

Not enough money to maintain the house from outside but enough to keep it like this within... Middle-class.

"I will show you your room," the woman informed behind them as she was closing the door. As she turned, a lovely smile had spread on her lips. "I am Aislinn Riggs, and this is my sister Aileen." The little girl flashed the friends a smile; two of her front teeth were missing.

Tyki was finally able to see what the woman had been holding behind the door, and was now putting away to the closet in the corner of the hallway; a good-looking hunting rifle.

As the others were looking around, the woman called Aislinn noticed that Tyki had seen the gun.

She decided to smile at him, charmingly. "A life insurance. Nasty thing, better put it away."

Tyki silently watched the woman put the rifle into the closet and lock the door, before he flashed a small, fearless smirk at her.

"I suppose it's understandable, being young and pretty as you are, Ms Riggs. Don't worry, though, we mean no harm."

Aislinn smiled lightly, calm like a lady. Had she been worried in the first place?

"I didn't catch your names."

"That's because we said none," Tyki said with a grin, "but if you insist to know, dear Miss, my name is Tyki, and these are Momo, Clark, and the little one's Eaze."

"Nice to meet you. Well then, boys, follow me," she told, walking ahead to the stairs, "and after you've settled in, we can go outside to see where to start."

"Wow. We sure are lucky, aren't we guys."

"Lucky?" Tyki repeated at Momo, who had laid down. Aislinn had carried the mattresses there from the attic, and, though a bit stuffy, they were soft and dry and comfortable to lie on. "We are lucky that the little lady didn't load us with lead, that's for sure."

"Ah, Tyki, what are you stressing about, there's no way she could have shot us!" Momo laughed, awfully sure of his words. "Such a lovely young woman, that Ms Riggs."

"You horny idiot."

"Oh come on! Didn't you see her at all?" Clark joined his friend, and Tyki looked at Eaze to get some kind of help.

"She was pretty," the boy murmured shortly.

A brow rose on Tyki's face. "Pretty?"

"You didn't notice at all, did you..." Clark sighed, shaking his head, thinking his friend was hopeless. "Geez. With cards and tricks, you are the one turn to, but you can be such a klutz when it comes to women."

Tyki sniggered, deviously. "Well, I'm busy thinking about stuff!"

"Yeah right, nothing's going on in that furry head of yours," Momo laughed and playfully smacked Tyki's head. "Despite you kept looking at her... You must have been just spacing out."

"I like spacing out," Tyki pouted, making his comrades laugh again.

"No wonder you are travelling with us losers, Tyki, you can get no ladies if you are so out of it," Momo teased, rolling back and forth on his mattress.

It was sort of true, as Tyki hadn't looked at the woman in ithat way/i. He'd been busy worrying if she tried to fill them with bullets and force him to show his ugly side to save his friends.

Frowning, he tried to remember if he had seen anything interesting in the woman. Tyki had seen many beautiful people in his life, so maybe he was just growing immune to them?

There was a knock on the door, and they all sat up immediately. "Come in!"

Next, there was Aislinn Riggs, standing on the doorway. "Alright, I'm sorry to disturb you, but I thought it'd be the time to go outside and get to work."

Now, given the opportunity, Tyki really scanned her with the efficiency of a predator: She had dark blue eyes and chestnut coloured hair, like her little sister had, only that Aislinn had tied it on a small bun to the back of her neck. There were freckles on the tip of her nose like little sprinkles of cinnamon, and her lower lip was fuller than the upper one. It was a cute, pink mouth.

Yes, she was pretty, he had to agree with his friends. But he had seen prettier.

Almost by accident, he moved his eyes from Aislinn's face to check her figure. It was hard to tell, with her having the thick autumn dress on, but if he really concentrated...

"My clothes aren't living creatures, Mr. Tyki, so I doubt they will able to take part on your staring contest," he heard someone say, and lifted his eyes to see Aislinn's amused face.

"What?" Tyki asked like a total idiot. His friends were sniggering on the background.

"We could start by gathering all the branches and twigs into a pile behind the house. Sound ok?" she asked from the others, completely ignoring Tyki's baffled face.

"We?" The black-haired man was confused. "You're going to help us?"

"Of course." Aislinn was still smiling at him. "We have no servants here, and I don't want to leave my home yard in the hands of strangers just like that. Besides, five pairs of hands are better than four pairs, right?"

When the owner of the house, a middle-aged banker called Elijah Riggs and her wife Mischa returned with their youngest children Connor and Brew from downtown, the four companions with the aid of Aislinn clad in her warm woollen dress and a muffler, had already managed to clean a half of the front yard and pile up anything that burned behind the house.

The Riggs were very understanding and not too wary of the four strangers, unlike their oldest child Aislinn had been. This was good news, for Tyki didn't want to get in a quarrel with Riggs Senior and the rifle her daughter had borrowed him earlier.

"You must have seen a lot during your travels across the country," Mrs Riggs began smalltalk as they were coming back inside. The sun was setting behind the hills, and they were all sweaty and covered with leaves and small scratches from the shards of wood they had collected and dragged behind the house.

"Yup," Tyki managed to sigh.

"Yeah... we have seen a lot, I'll give you that..."

"A lot," agreed Momo, panting slightly and wiping his forehead with a rag he had got from Mrs Riggs. Eaze was practically crawling upstairs while they were still talking.

"Oh, where are our manners, we'll prepare a bath for you gentlemen... Ah, Aislinn, dear."

The young woman turned. "Yes, mama?"

"Would you be so kind and go boil some bath water for yourself and these good workmen", Mrs Riggs asked. "I'll prepare the dinner table with your siblings while you get washed and changed."

Aislinn nodded and walked to the back of the house.

Mr Riggs took out a cigarette from his breastpocket and lit it up with a match. He walked quietly into the living room to smoke in all peace and quiet. Mrs Riggs turned back to Tyki and others.

"You can return to your room, I'm sure Aislinn will soon be done," she said, smiling softly.

"Well, then, see you in a moment, ma'am," Tyki said cheerfully, and the group got back upstairs, and nearly fell on their mattresses.

"I'm surprised the little lady helped us out the entire time," Momo managed to sigh. Eaze had already got to his mattress and fallen asleep. "How long have we been working? Ten hours?"

"At least," Clark groaned. "Every muscle in my body is on fire..."

"Oh quit your yapping and get ready for bath, you smelly oafs," Tyki told with laughter. "Then, after some dinner and saying goodnight, we might be able to look for something worth stealing in this place."

Clark and Momo both chuckled weakly. "You are such an evil man, Tyki."

"You know it, pal."

For a second, he thought about something, and then got up and returned to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To have a look around beforehand. Don't worry, I'll get back soon."


	3. Part 2

The 2nd floor wasn't too big – just a bunch of rooms combined by a rather small corridor with wooden floors and white empty walls.

There was no one in sight, not even the younger children, and Tyki wondered if he could use his Noah powers without anyone noticing. So quietly, he slid himself little by little through the floor and gently landed on the hallway downstairs, just beside the kitchen door. Mr. Riggs was still in the living room, and judging by the noise, the younger kids were helping their mother in the kitchen.

There was a door at the back of the hall, slightly open, and without a further a due he decided to have a look. Opening the door a bit more, Tyki glanced inside.

The single light bulb, which was hanging from the ceiling, had been switched on, and Tyki saw a figure moving at the back of the room – or a bathroom, as he noticed the light blue tiles both on the walls and the floor, and the small round sink.

The figure was, as he had suspected, Aislinn Riggs. The woman had removed her thick woollen garments, put them aside on a little wooden stool, and was now busy preparing the bath for the tired workmen. Her white underdress and bare arms seemed to almost glow in the middle of the steam coming from the hot running water, and the light coloured tiles.

She had opened her hairbun, Tyki noted, and then combed it aside on her other shoulder. Her neck was revealed in a much more attractive fashion than when her hair had just been tied up.

Women these days should always wear their hair down, Tyki thought to himself. That way this woman, with the little freckles on the tip of her nose and dark blue eyes cast over the filling bathtub, seemed suddenly much more enticing to Tyki. Or maybe he wasn't just thinking straight after the long day.

Soon the woman sensed him there, and in a moment she haf turned quickly around and faced the man who had been watching her from the doorway.

In this one hasty movement, Tyki noticed how the thin locks of hair that framed her face had reacted in the moist and warm air by curling up like corkscrews.

Her cheeks turned lovely rosy color, and for a moment Aislinn Riggs looked like a porcelain doll to Tyki.

And at the same moment, she looked somewhat familiar to him.

"Ahhh, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Tyki hurried to exclaim with that carefree, slightly high-pitched voice of his – better do the shouting first before the woman would scream. "I thought you had already gone back to your room – or something..."

"H-How long have you been standing there?" Aislinn demanded to know, but with a composed and low voice. She didn't want to be found by her family while being in such an embarrassing situation, Tyki figured.

"Seriously, not long," Tyki answered her, this time with a low, whispery tone as well, "I was just... eh, watching!"

"I know _that _already!" she snapped, and now her ears had begun to turn red with her cheeks. Her face looked like a tomato.

Before managing to stop himself, a chuckle erupted from Tyki's throat. And with that chuckle, Aislinn lost every bit of self-respect, and made an attempt to grab the towel hanging on the other side of tub to cover herself with it – but her foot slipped on the moist tiles, and she fell back as elaborately as a headless chicken.

"Oh-hop!" Tyki blurted and just managed to rush forward and grab her arm. With a simple tug she was pulled against him. "Easy there, Miss. 'S everything okay?"

Aislinn let out a small groan and bent down to hold her right ankle.

"Does it hurt much?"

"No, I thought I sprained it, but I think it'll be okay," she hissed between her teeth, her head heavily pressing against Tyki's chest.

Being this close, the scent of her hair flowed into Tyki's nostrils, and his body tensed up immediately. Aislinn's body warmth was oozing through his bristly and dirty clothes in waves.

Both the dark and light sides of him reacted in the same bestial manner; he was aroused.

"I'm sorry," Aislinn murmured and managed to stand up, snapping Tyki out of his thoughts.

"Ahh, it's okay, it's okay," he said quickly, "I'm just glad nothing more serious happened. You could've hit your head pretty bad, Miss Riggs."

For a second there, he had been in danger.

The most basic feelings were the most deceiving ones whenever he was in this form. Letting them roam freely would be just...

Well. Too human for him.

"It's Aislinn," she reminded him and straightened herself. "I'll be fine, I can stand quite well without it being too painful."

"I'll get in trouble for this, won't I?" Tyki sighed, angry at himself that he had left his friends and come to peek her in the first place.

"For saving me from a concussion? I doubt it." She was smiling now. "Thanks... 'Tyki', was it?"

They stared at each other for a moment. The locks were still curled around her face like small corkscrews.

"Ah... Yeah."

"Well, Tyki, your bath water is ready. Get clean and neat before the dinner."

"You're not going to tell your parents that I was peeking you?"

Aislinn raised her brows. "Is that what it was?"

"Ah... er..."

"How about we just forget this ever happened, okay, Tyki? Embarrassing situations shouldn't be made public, wouldn't you agree?"

Tyki laughed a little. "I suppose. You looked so much like a porcelain doll, you might have crushed into a thousand pieces if I hadn't pulled you up."

Oops. He'd said too much again.

Well, he was playing the role of an inconsiderate hobo, was he not?

Aislinn's expression darkened slightly at his words. "I still _almost _sprained my ankle, so you are in no place to get all high and mighty, Mr Peeping Tom."

The woman sure had a sharp tongue, Tyki thought with a small apologizing grimace. He almost heard the sound of a whip slash.

"I'll go inform your friends that the bath is ready," Aislinn said to him while gathering her woollen dress, "and tell them you are already here."

She passed him quickly and then Tyki heard the door close. He sighed.

Got away with troubles, he thought, feeling a bit smug.

Once the Millenium Earl's troops would reach this town, he might actually miss Aislinn Riggs's blushing face a little.

"Sheelow's been put in a tight spot... We are expecting another storm tomorrow," told Mrs Riggs as they were all dining together in the lovely green-colored dining room. Tyki, Clark and Momo had borrowed Mr Riggs' old clothes while those of their own were still drying in the bathroom. Eaze had borrowed Brew's pajamas, and the twin boys were eagerly chomping down their meals.

"Ah, must be tough on you folks, but, no one died in the last storm, right?" Tyki asked, secretly trying to get some useful information out of the Riggs family members. Had there been casualties, there would soon be Akuma in Sheelow as well.

Mrs Riggs looked troubled. "There were some serious accidents caused by the strong wind... And I am afraid few of the citizens are missing. Only two people have been declared dead."

"Yes," admitted Mr Riggs, munching a loaf of bread, "for instance, the baker's little son... Terrible, terrible, I must say. Poor child had been out in the forest playing when the storm began. A tree fell down and struck him on the head. Died instantly."

Mrs Riggs sniffed emotionally, and everyone in the room was looking gloomy all of a sudden.

Death of a child, huh, thought Tyki. An unexpected, unfair death of a healthy child caused more ruckus and more emotional unstableness than that of an elderly citizen or an adult.

"And the other one was an elderly widow who lived alone in the outskirts of the town," Mrs Riggs sighed. "A lightning struck her house and caused a fire. She had been in deep sleep and was apparently suffocated by the smoke."

One child and one lonely widow. Not enough to call forth any demon armies, but perhaps after tomorrow...

Aislinn looked up from her plate. "It sounds like it's raining again."

Indeed: low, small noise caused by the driplets of water banging against the roof echoed somewhere above them.

"We better seal the windows better this time," said Mr Riggs while cutting his steak. "I believe you good fellows will help us to do that?"

"Of course!" Momo and Clark exclaimed like from one thought.

"That's why we are here for!" Tyki agreed with them, grinning good-heartedly. He saw from the corner of his eye that Aislinn was looking at him, but when he turned his head she bashfully turned away to ask something from her mother. Tyki couldn't help smirking a little.

"Excuse me, Mr Riggs," said Momo suddenly, trying to sound more polite than he really was, "but I've been staring at that painting on the wall for a good time now. Are they all your children?"

Tyki turned his head to see what Momo was talking about. At the end of the dining room was a large painting hanging on the wall. It had golden frames, and it was a portrait of the four children of the family – except there were two other people there as well: A woman who seemed to be the oldest one, and who shared striking similarities with Aislinn and Mrs Riggs, and a young man, who had the same sharp chin and dark eyebrows as Mr Riggs and the reddish brown hair of Mrs Riggs.

"Yes, that's Evan on the right, our oldest son. He works as a priest in this town, and has lived in his own apartment for many years now," told Mr Riggs, sounding proud.

Tyki nearly grimaced; A priest? He couldn't understand what kind of a man – especially a man with looks as this Evan appeared to be in the painting – would ever aspire to become something as boring as a priest.

"And the young woman sitting beside Ms Aislinn?" asked Tyki, willing to hear something else than mind-dulling stories of the Riggs' priest boy.

Mr and Mrs Riggs looked at each othern, then down, troubled. Aileen and the twin boys were looking at their parents, sort of uneasy but also slightly curious.

"That would be Bryanna," said Aislinn, surprisingly indifferent compared to her family members. "She was the second child, the oldest daughter."

Ah. The use of past tense. No wonder they had all become so stiff all of a sudden.

Being the one who had asked about the portrait in the first place, Momo was biting his lower lip and feeling guilty. "Sorry?" he tried.

"Don't worry about it," Aislinn said and smiled at him, "It happened many years ago. Sure we miss her, but death is the dark side of life. We all have to accept it, to avoid problems."

These words caught Tyki's interest, and he knew that Aislinn knew how he was looking at her behind the thick glasses and the messy locks of dark hair.

"It's... It's not really the death of our beloved daughter that makes us so uncomfortable talking about it," Mrs Riggs said with a shivering voice. "It's the way how we found out about it."

"Meaning," said Aislinn, and by looking at her father Tyki deduced that she was telling them too much, "that she was living elsewhere with her husband, and we heard about her death from the priest who had been in her burial, not from my sister's husband."

"That man never came to face us, never wrote and explained us what had happened to her," Mr Riggs told, stern. "We still do not know exactly what killed our beautiful daughter."

Now, this was interesting, Tyki mused. Judging by Aislinn's expression, it seemed she wasn't too annoyed about her sister's mysterious death. Or was there more to it?

"_Calm and collected porcelain doll, Aislinn Riggs,"_ Tyki laughed in his mind, _"I have seen your perfect mask falter, and I won't be fooled by you so easily._"

"It seems there's some family drama going on in this place," Momo sighed as they were all lying on their mattresses. The room was dark, and the rain was beating against the windows.

"Does it make me a bad person if I want to know how that Bryanna chick died?" Clark mused out loud.

"Nah," Tyki said, grinning, "You are a bad person just by being you."

"What was that?"

"Ssh, be quiet, we don't want to wake up everybody!"

"Oh yeah, Tyki, did you find anything worth stealing?"

There was a snort in the darkness. "Nope, just Ms Riggs in her undergarments."

The silence that followed lasted only about a second.

"WHAT?" blurted Momo and Clark as they sat up in shock and admiration.

"SSHHHHH!"

The silence fell upon them once again and this time lasted a good few minutes, too.

"It was nothing," Tyki murmured finally. 'Guess he had to share this kind of stuff with his buddies, like a man.

"Nothi-?" Momo tried to repeat in awe. "You're saying Ms Aislinn was standing there, before you, in her undergarments... and it was nothing?"

"We didn't make out or anything, so isn't it okay to say that?"

"Does she have a body that bad?"

"What? No, no, her body was nice, but she had her underdress on, so I didn't see... everything."

"Ahhhh~." Noise of understanding.

Eaze was asleep and breathing heavily somewhere in the dark.

"To tell the truth... Ms Aislinn is pretty, but a bit... cold."

"What makes you say that, Momo?" Tyki asked. He had already closed his eyes and was trying to fall asleep by listening the rain.

"Well, think about how she talked of her dead sister. She didn't seem... uhm..."

"Emotionally attached?"

"Wow, you know some fancy words, don't you Clark."

"It's proper English!"

Tyki listened the two of them talk, smiling. He had to agree with Momo, though, it wasn't ordinary for humans to take death so lightly, even though it had been years since it had last visited. There was always a hint of sadness or anger or something, especially in cases where someone close one has been taken away all of a sudden. So what did Aislinn's indifference told them?

"She might be crazy," Tyki said out loud.

The fact that none of his friends spoke for a while told that they had taken him seriously.

"So Ms Riggs is... mad? Traumatized so badly that she cannot feel anything anymore?"

"Yup, that's what I think," lied Tyki and yawned; he was already getting tired of this topic. "It doesn't have anything to do with us, though. Mad or not, there's nothing to steal here. Might as well leave as soon as possible once the job's done."

A lightning flashed outside and the wind was whistling in the corners. No one had anything to say, and Tyki was certain that his friends had already fallen asleep, before Clark sighed.

"Still..."

Tyki opened his eyes to squint at his friend in the dark. "Still...?"

"I would have loved to see Ms Aislinn wearing nothing but her undergarments..."

The Noah of Pleasure could have gone into details. How the smaller locks of her hair had curled up in the moist air, how her face had changed colours when she had got embarrassed, how she had breathed while leaning against Tyki and holding her foot. He remembered the reaction of both of his sides, the sensation running through his veins.

"Women," he sighed.

"Surprising creatures," Momo murmured.

"I want one," Clark sneered, and they all sniggered like school boys.


	4. Part 3

Tyki was the first to wake up from his buddies. As he sat up and looked outside, through the fogged glass, he saw nothing else but grey clouds, and heard the soft dripping of rain drops against the roof.

There were no other sounds around, and he wondered what time it was. His stomach was growling.

Yawning, he took his blanket, wrapped it around his shoulders and walked into the corridor, silently. He couldn't see anyone, so he walked downstairs to prepare himself some breakfast.

The moment he heard the butter sizzle on a frying pan he knew who was also awake.

"Ms Aislinn," Tyki growled a greeting, his throat dry and black hair sticking everywhere like a bird's nest. The woman, fully-clothed and hair tied up, turned to glance at him before turning back to the eggs she was frying.

"So, Mr Peeping Tom couldn't sleep properly?"

"It got a bit too chilly for my taste," Tyki said as he sat down on a stool and began rubbing his temples.

"Draft, the curse of the older houses," Aislinn sneered. "Perhaps you would like to have something to drink while I am preparing the breakfast?"

"What time is it?"

"Just quarter past five."

Tyki groaned, his head still in his hands. "Do you have any red wine?"

He didn't see it, but he could have sworn Aislinn raised her brows at his words. "Yes, actually I think we take better care of our wines than of our precious house," she mused, and Tyki was grateful that she didn't start preaching how wine was not the best way to start a new day. In no time, she had poured him a glass full of red wine from a bottle she had got from their cellar. Tyki's eyes had begun to glimmer with anticipation the moment he had watched her pour the dark red liquid into the fragile glass.

Be it his light or dark form, he would always love red wine.

"I thought I would serve some of our apples, jam, and a bread... And some tea and eggs and sausages."

"Sounds good to me," Tyki said and sipped his wine. The explosion of spices, berries and acidity spread through his torso, and soon he was feeling much warmer than earlier. Aislinn worked behind the kitchen counter, boiling and pouring the water for the tea, and occassionally checking if the sausages in the oven were ready.

"For a young woman who wasn't born as the first daughter you sure do a lot of the house works," Tyki marked, and Aislinn chuckled.

"Bryanna was never much of a housewife," she told, "so I've got good at these sorts of things."

"What kind of a person was she?" the man wished to know, as he was now staring at Aislinn over his wine glass. "For a woman who has lost her elder sister, you sure seem to take it lightly."

Offended look flashed in Aislinn's eyes. "I do not take it lightly, but I try not to overreact when it comes to the death of my sister. I try to stay positive, and remember what is the most important."

"And that would be?"

"That she is in the wind that blows through this valley," Aislinn said mysteriously, then smiled gently at Tyki. "She is in the clouds and in the rain. Everywhere. Therefore, we haven't been separated."

"Huh. Ms. Aislinn, can I tell you what I think?"

"Sure."

"I have a feeling you know more about your sister's death than your other family members," the Noah said with a cheeky grin. "You didn't kill her yourself, did you?"

Aislinn put down the knife she had been cutting some vegetables with, and looked at Tyki slightly puzzled.

"Why would a hobo who travels around with his pack of other tramps be concerned with my sister?" she inquired.

"I like mysteries, especially if they involve pain and suffering," he said honestly. Then, he tilted his head, expecting Aislinn to continue.

The young woman leaned against the counter and gazed right back at him.

"Bryanna was my hero, like any older sister is to their younger siblings," she told, and Tyki could tell from her body language that she was being truthful. "So, unfortunately you are wrong; I did not murder her. She was a travelling spirit, such as yourself, married Denzel and... then all of a sudden she was gone."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that." The corner of her mouth twitched slightly into a small, sad smile, but there were no regrets, no "what ifs" in her eyes. "I can as well tell you since it's not that big of a deal... But Denzel appeared to our porch with a urn one day, when my parents were away. We had our own burial ceremony and let the wind take the ashes."

Tyki listened to the story, sipping his red wine time to time, constantly watching the young woman's face as she spoke. "This Denzel... He was your brother-in-law?"

"Yes. And he was... _is _a fine man. I don't know where he currently is, but I would wish to meet him again."

"But your parents blame him for the death of your sister."

"As does he himself, I'm sure. But he did not kill Bryanna," she said and, as if to emphasize her words, she strictly looked at Tyki. "Denzel's a good, honest and kind man. He loved my sister more than life."

Something in her tone of voice made Tyki raise his brow. "Well he must have loved her a lot, then," he sneered, apparently annoying the young woman for she snapped, "He did!"

"Calm down, Miss. I did not mean to offend you, seriously." As a sign of surrender, Tyki lifted his hands up so she would calm down. "So how did it happen?"

"The priest who was in her burial claimed that she had caught some kind of a disease, but..."

The woman hesitated a second.

That was all Tyki needed.

"Your brother-in-law told you the truth."

"... Yes."

"And the truth is...?"

"Good morning, everyone!" screamed the twins as they ran down the stairs and soon barged into the kitchen, surprising both Tyki and Aislinn.

"Geez, Brew, Connor, what has mother said about running in the stairs?" Aislinn began preaching as if she had been their mother herself. As the other kid tried to snatch an apple from the counter, she swiftly slashed the hand with a table cloth and shooed the twins away. On the doorway, she switched glances with Tyki – and went after her brothers.

The conversation was over.

"Bummer! It would have been interesting to know how she had died," Momo mused as the four of them were outside again, sealing the windows with planks by nailing them to the frames. It was cloudy, but at least it wasn't raining anymore.

"Yeah I know, I was so close too," groaned Tyki before banging a couple of nails into the plank.

"My money's on an axe murderer!" Clark let them know as he got down from the roof.

"That's terrible."

"I know, right? Who would want to die by an axe?"

"I meant that I doubt she was killed by an axe murderer," Tyki chuckled. "I suspect something simple yet tragic, like a serious accident. A fire, food poisoning..."

"Sounds too simple," Momo mused, "How about this: she got a food poisoning, and when they called for help, an axe murderer appeared first and then the apartment was set on fire?"

They all burst into laughter.

"We have to stop this," Tyki sniggered, "before someone overhears us and the Riggs will kick us out..."

"This is the last plank," Momo giggled, wiping his eyes, and with a single bang of the hammer, they were done. "All right... Could as well wrap it up before it starts to rain..."

Clark looked around. "Hey. Did any of you see where Eaze went?"

Next they were all turning their heads, searching the little boy with their eyes. "Eaze?"

"Hey, kiddo, where are you!"

"Eaze!"

No answer. Only the wind was rustling in the trees.

"Maybe he went inside? Did anyone see him or hear him say anything?"

"No...? He must have just... run off..."

"Is something wrong?" asked Mrs Riggs who had just appeared to the doorway. The three men looked at each other.

"Our youngest comrade wouldn't happen to be inside with the twins?" Tyki asked, scratching his head. "We've seemed to lost him."

The older woman was worried in an instant. "No... Both Brew and Connor are inside, studying with their father. Where could he have gone?"

"Damn.. this is bad, the weather's getting worse too, if we don't find him soon..." Tyki let his words fade away, and he and his friends switched some glances. "We'll go search for him."

"The storm will be here in a couple of hours-" Mrs Riggs tried to hold them back, but when she faced their expressions, she couldn't help but sigh and nod. "We'll be waiting you here. Aislinn should be back from downtown soon, I'll tell her to come and help with the search."

Thank you for bothering to offer us your _own_ help, you old goose, Tyki thought grumpily in his mind. "Momo, you take the forest, Clark, go check the back of the house, I'll go look for him from the streets."

His friends nodded. "We'll find him for sure!"

Aislinn had been sent to downtown to get some groceries, in case the upcoming storm would cut the roads and cause even more damage than the last one. She was carrying a basket full of bread, cheese, jars of jelly and honey, small paper bags that had tea leaves in them, some coffee, and of course meat.

As she walked down the hill she wondered if Tyki and his comrades had got the windows sealed already.

When thinking of the man with thick, dark messy hair and even thicker pair of glasses, Aislinn realized she felt uneasy; there was something odd going on specifically in this tramp, yet she couldn't put her finger on what it was that was bothering her so much. Was it the way how he seemed to talk much more politely than his companions time to time, was it his obvious cheeky attitude, or that he said and did things in a way that no other poor and foolish hobo could've ever gotten away with? And then there was his interest towards Bryanna's death.

It'd been a good thing that the twins had come and interrupted them in time, for Aislinn wasn't too sure if she had kept the secret from him or not. She had needed a time-out, for the minute she left the kitchen and went after her brothers, she had remembered Denzel's words:

"_Do not tell anyone how she died. You could endanger yourself and your entire family if you did."_

The demons, Akuma. The Millenium Earl. The Exorcists. She remembered them all from Bryanna's ghost stories, and wasn't going to tell her sister's greatest secret to anyone. She was doing this for everyone's sake...

And she missed Denzel. That small yet painful feeling had been pinching her heart for a good few months now. Where was he? He had promised her that they would keep in touch, but there had been not one letter in years, and Aislinn did not know where to write to.

There was a loud boom above, and Aislinn shrieked. In a second it was raining again; big heavy drops which felt like small stones when they hit her head. She covered her basket with a cloth and hurried her steps so she would make it home before the thunder storm would reach Sheelow.

Denzel... The thought of losing him forever as well was too horrible to even consider. She needed his support more than anyone else's, even if it was simply via letters.

As Aislinn was passing the long-ago deserted barn beside the road, she heard noise. She turned her head but saw no one. The rain was falling hard, and she could hear the rumble of thunder approaching. But – there was the noise again!

Someone was wailing – and it was coming near the deserted barn. Aislinn didn't believe in ghosts, but the storm and enclosing darkness was beginning to scare her. But the wailing was real, and heart-breaking, and before she could stop herself, she had dashed towards the barn.

"Hello? Who are you?" Aislinn shouted, making her way through the long grass and bushes, "Where are you?"

She heard some coughing. Her hair was wet and glued to her scalp and cheeks. "Where are you?"

"In the well!"

She spotted the old, partly grumbled stone well further away from her, behind the barn. She put down her basket, lifted up her skirt and dashed there as fast as possible.

The person trapped in the well was young Eaze; he was holding a pathetic and wet kitty in his arms.

"Eaze!"

"Ms Riggs!" the little boy cried out. He had pulled down his mouth mask, and his eyes were in tears. "H-Help!"

The rain was filling the old pit fast – if she didn't hurry, the boy and the kitty would both drown. Should she run to her house? It would take too much time, and the storm was only getting worse...

"I'm going to help you! Stay calm!" She looked around – there was a tall, moss-covered plank leaning against the barn door. She ran to it and lifted it to her arms, partly dragging it towards the well. "Watch your head!" she instructed the child as she slowly brought the plank down beside Eaze til it reached the bottom and leaned against the rim of the well. "Can you climb up?"

The little kitty scratched the kid's hands and hurried up the plank like a lightning, disappearing into the forest. Eaze tried to follow its example, but his arms and legs were too tired to hold on long enough.

"I can't do it!"

Aislinn tried to think. The storm was close and a lightning flashed somewhere. She looked at her wet dress – and had an idea.

"Hold on just a bit longer!" she shouted and started ripping her hemline with muddy and wet hands. She managed to rip off a major part of the fabric, then threw the other end of the piece of fabric down to Eaze. "Tie it around your waist! I'll pull you from here, and help you climb up!"

The kid worked fast, and the moment Aislinn saw he was ready, she began to pull as steadily as possible. Her hands were shaking from the adrenaline rush, but Eaze was slowly rising; and once he was close enough, Aislinn leaned in and grabbed his arm, and with a strong tug she jerked him up, and they both fell against the muddy grass.

Gasping for air, they looked at each other. Eaze started crying, and Aislinn felt that she was close to tears as well.

"Let's hurry back home before the thunder's above us," she said, stood up and lifted the little exhausted boy to her arms. She stumbled a little but kept her balance, hurried to grab the basket she had put down earlier and ran down the road.

The walls were shaking from the power of the wind, and the heavy drops which were hitting the roof sounded like small banging fists. The occasional rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightnings behind the windows made everyone startle. And in addition to that, two of them were missing.

Mrs Riggs was crying hopelessly in the livingroom's big armchair, while her children and husband were trying to calm her down.

Momo and Clark and Tyki were worried about their youngest friend. There was no way a small boy like that could survive in this kind of a storm.

Tyki had been thinking his options for a good time now – if he disappeared for a second... But then, what if he did not find Eaze after all... And Momo and Clark might want to help him find Eaze as well, if he left, they would come and risk their lives, as well...

"Where's Aislinn?" Mrs Riggs wailed. "I can't lose another daughter! I can't take it!"

"Calm down, honey, Aislinn will surely be okay..."

"Yo, Tyki, what are we going to do?" Momo whispered to his friend, looking just as worried as any other in the room but as a man, he didn't have the option to just break down and cry.

"Yeah, it's not looking too good, I mean, what if Eaze is..."

"He's not," Tyki said with determination. "We'll find him as soon as the storm calms down a little-"

They all yelped when a loud bang emerged outside; it was followed by a heavy wailing sound, and finally ended with just as loud thud. A tree had fallen over somewhere.

"Immediately when the storm moves further away," Tyki repeated, "we will-"

"Open the door!" someone shouted behind the door, banging on it like the hell had broken loose outside. Mr and Mrs Riggs, the twins and Aileen all jumped up as they recognized the voice, but Tyki was faster, already opening the door before Aislinn had banged the door for the 30th time.

She looked dreadful.

She had somehow ripped her dress, and what was left of the hemline was soiled in mud; her hair was messy and dripping water, and her eyes were red from tears. But none of that mattered; all what was important became real in flesh as Tyki saw the small snivelling boy who she had tightly closed into her muddy arms.

The young woman jumped inside and against Tyki, squeezing poor Eaze between them like a sponge, and the door was shut close.

For a moment, no one could do anything but stare at the two of them; the woman and the child who had been thought to be lost.

"Aislinn," Mrs Riggs whispered, and the moment she heard her mother's call, Aislinn Riggs broke down in tears, Eaze still in his arms. The boy began petting her wet and dirty hair, trying to comfort her. Eaze looked up, and saw Tyki's face.

The Noah had backed up against the door, slid down and sat on the floor. He couldn't say anything to put his relief and gratitude into words – then soon after he felt ridiculous for getting so baffled in front of his friends. Not that there was anything weird in this way of acting; both Momo and Clark were just as relieved as Tyki was.

He watched the shivering back of the sobbing woman; a woman who had been scared to death, no doubt, and who was now there, happy to be alive and well. She was crying both out of joy and fear that she now allowed to entangle in her heart.

Tyki watched her being taken inside by her family members, and could only think of one thing that was as clear as a day to him.

He owed to her.


	5. Part 4

It's ironic how a storm is always followed by sunshine and clear blue sky. It's given, something that happens even if the storm had ripped the trees from their roots, lightnings had burned the forests, fields and houses and the rain had caused the rivers and lakes overflow.

After all the destruction, there would be sunlight and warmth. It was wonderful, yet at the same time it was unfair; the nature did not care of the human losses but lived its own life as the living entity it was. The nature wasn't living like a person, for a person would have stopped to see the damage it had just caused.

As Tyki Mikk was lying on his mattress, eyes half-closed, staring at the ceiling as if any minute it would grow a face and start to talk to him, he felt the indifference of nature in rays of sunshine that beamed between the moist planks on the windows.

Just yesterday, he had thought they had lost a comrade. But Eaze was now there, lying on his mattress, covered by warm blankets and wearing clean, soft pajamas. The mouth mask had moved into an awkward position on his face, but the sleeping boy didn't seem to mind.

Tyki had grown attached to these humans; these homeless hobos who were sprawled all over their mattresses, snoring and farting like any ordinary people would. Now, Tyki was attached to Aislinn Riggs as well, but in a different way. He owed her for saving Eaze's life; therefore, he would have to pay his debt to her. How, he wasn't too sure.

Being a Noah was problematic, for he had to be here, there and then everywhere, making sure the Millenium Earl's plans were going smoothly, that there were enough humans begging the return of their dead loved-ones and enough Exorcists were getting killed.

He had to admit that his body was itching to get his next assignment.

Therefore, while he did not question the debt he had to repay to Aislinn Riggs, he was troubled when trying to figure out how to do it. He wouldn't be able to watch over her once they left Sheelow, not on regular basis at least.

What if he just forgot all about it? Just let it slide, Tyki thought, just push the matter aside and never bring it up again. They would leave the Riggs, and the Riggs would forget the tramps who helped them get through the autumn storms, and Aislinn Riggs would finally die, like any other human.

Tyki grimaced and sighed, irritated. His light and dark sides were in a battle of wits, and they were making him crazy. He couldn't let it slide. But he wouldn't be able to pay back his debt once they left Sheelow.

"I must be losing my mind," he murmured and got up.

He walked out of the room and to the room on the back of the corridor, where he knew Aislinn would be sleeping in with her younger sister Aileen. He opened the door silently, saw that they were both still asleep, and stepped in.

After closing the door, he evaluated the situation once more before going to Aislinn's bed, and poked her shoulder.

"Hey, Miss Aislinn," he whispered, then gently shook her from her shoulder. Soon the young woman's eyes cracked open, and once she understood who was standing there, she jumped up with a surprised gasp; Tyki clasped his hand on her mouth before she would be able to scream.

"Good morning," he said with his usual cheerful grin, "I'm not here for anything fishy, but I was wondering about something and would like you to help me with my problem. Sound okay?"

Aislinn quickly nodded a couple of times and, satisfied, Tyki removed his hand from her mouth to scratch his chin. "About last night..." he began.

"Do you have no manners?" Aislinn hissed, careful not to wake up Aileen who was asleep in her own bed across the room. "A man shouldn't walk into a woman's room while they are-"

"You can preach me later, sister," Tyki cut her sentence, looking cheerful. "As I said, about last night... I just want you to know me and my pals are extremely grateful to you for saving our young friend."

She blushed slightly, but remained collected. "It was nothing, anyone would have done the same. It was pure luck that I even happened to hear him."

"Despite that," Tyki kept insisting while his dark side was ordering him to let it slide since she was making it so easy, "I am indebted to you."

"I assure you, it's fine."

"And I assure you too that it's fine once you tell me how I could repay my debt."

"You are joking."

"No, this time I'm dead-serious," he said, though not letting the grin melt off his face. "It's true it was part luck that you found him, but in the end, you still saved Eaze from drowning. You should own up to it and take all the good that follows this good deed."

"What good?" she asked, and Tyki noticed that she was beginning to look amused. "What can a man like you offer to me? Today you and your friends will leave our household, and after that we will never see each other again."

"You'll never know."

"It's unlikely, at least."

"Still, you could ask something for the heck of it," Tyki suggested, "I'm a man of many talents."

"Is that so."

"Yes, it is." He was beginning to grow tired of her condescending attitude. "I might be a wondering spirit, but I can get you something."

The woman thought about this for a moment, and then finally raised her head back at Tyki. "There's a man I want to find."

Tyki frowned. "A man?"

Aileen let out a small sound and turned to her other side. Soon she was breathing evenly again, fully asleep.

"Denzel," Aislinn said with clear eyes. "I want to find Denzel."

"You mean your brother-in-law?"

"Yes. He promised to keep in contact and write me, but... It's been seven years, and I haven't got anything."

The Noah of Pleasure couldn't hide his amazement. "Seven years...? … You sure are patient."

The young woman sneered, almost bitterly, and looked down her hands.

"I believed in him. Although I really had no choice; I can't write him since I don't know where he resides."

While listening her talk, Tyki was starting to understand why she sounded so eager when it came to the missing husband of her dead sister. How tragicomic.

"But I know where his family lives," Aislinn said softly. Then, almost shyly, she looked up at Tyki. "Have you heard of a city called Brunsdane?"

Yes, he thought. Brunsdane was famous for its class differences; there were wonderful districts full of rich people, expensive stores and luxuries, and then there were the outskirts of the city filled with poverty and suffering. It was an ideal place to fool around, if you had the money to do it – for example, Cyril did - or then call forth and order around a few akuma.

"No, can't say I've heard of a place like that," Tyki said with a big dumb grin.

"Then, since you are so enthusiastic," Aislinn said with a small smile, "maybe you and your friends would like to accompany me there? If you are lucky, you might also get a chance to save my life while at it."

The corner of Tyki's mouth twitched. "So just accompanying you won't be enough to pay my debt?"

The woman smirked. "No, unless you think your friend's life is as valuable as a trip to Brunsdane – which is only a few hours away by train."

Tyki's dark side was having a blast laughing at the expense of his light side: first this woman had refused any kind of payback, now she was practically guilt-tripping him!

What an annoying person, he thought while still smiling.

"Fine," he agreed, and added just for the heck of it, "I believe you will pay for our travelling expenses, then?"

"I've been saving for this trip for these past seven years," Aislinn said charmingly, as if aware and enjoying the fact that she was slowly getting on his nerves, "so I suppose I have some coins to spare for a few hobos."

Ohhoh. Getting cocky, aren't we? "Can I inquire why your lady-ness hasn't gone to Brunsdane alone if she has so much savings?" Tyki said without being able to stop himself. "Is it because she hasn't been brave to face this eternal love she feels for the man who was once married to her dear sister?"

Something flashed in Aislinn's dark blue eyes, something that sparked fire into them, and Tyki knew immediately he had hit the nail on the head. It _was _tragicomic, but would he now laugh at her, he would just complicate matters even more.

She glared at him for a good few seconds, as if willing to turn him into ashes, before turning away.

"I believe that was all," she said grimly. "I will see all four of you downstairs after breakfast, and we will be in Brisbane before the sun sets."

Despite his earlier indiscreet questioning, Tyki kept his gauche character, and made an exaggerated bow before backing away from her bed.

"As you wish, Ms. Aislinn."

…...

~Meanwhile~

"Dear Earl, where might my brother be?" Cyril Kamelot asked while enjoying his tea in the garden of his mansion. "Where is Lord Tyki Mikk?"

"Lord Tyki is enjoying his days off," the Earl, in his human form, stated calmly. "You will meet him soon."

"Having fun with his friends, heh?" Cyril sneered and leaned back in his white garden chair. "I hear there was some ruckus in Tollenwahl..."

"Nothing big, unfortunately," Millenium Earl apologized, "Exorcists got there a tad bit too early for anything wonderful to happen."

"And they all lived through it?"

"One death."

"Ah. That is unfortunate."

They both sipped the tea at the same time. Cyril's wife was picking flowers from the garden further away from them. Cyril watched her, smiling.

"You know what I think," he finally mused out loud, "Tyki should find a cute wife like I did. He spends too much time with those male friends of his, and doesn't enjoy the lovely company of women as much as he should."

"Lord Tyki has had his fair share of beautiful women, Cyril," the Millenium Earl noted, "but, unlike you and your picturesque games as a family man, Tyki-pet has his own ways to enjoy life."

Cyril pouted dramatically. "Picturesque games... What a cruel thing to say..." He glanced up at the sky and the fluffy white clouds floating across it.

"I'm just interested... Since I know Tyki loves to play games himself."


	6. Part 5

"So this is Brunsdane... It's... bigger than I imagined," Aislinn Riggs mused out loud as they exited the railway station.

"Yup, it's big and rich and selfish, like a monarch," Momo joked, making Clark laugh.

"We part here," Tyki said begrudgingly. "Sorry."

The young woman holding a brown suitcase looked puzzled for a second there. "For what?"

"That I didn't get to save your life and pay back my debt," Tyki sighed. Aislinn smiled at him and shrugged.

"I'll put it to your bill. In case we meet again. Momo, Clark, Eaze...Tyki. It was nice meeting you all. Thank you for everything."

"Likewise, Miss Riggs," Momo said smiling.

"It was a real pleasure," Clark admitted too. Eaze was silent but gave the young woman a quick hug before saying, "Thank you."

She beamed at the small boy. "No need to thank. Take care of yourself."

Then, Aislinn Riggs looked up at Tyki. They looked at each other for a moment, before Aislinn sticked out her hand. "I hope you will have a good life, Tyki Mikk."

The Noah grinned and grabbed her hand firmly. "Yeah. Same. Sorry I couldn't pay my debt."

"I will keep it in mind, in case we meet again."

"You do that, dollface." Tyki smiled at her. "Hope you find that brother-in-law of yours."  
>"Me too." Her eyes gleamed with hope and anticipation. "Well... then... See ya."<p>

"See ya."

And just like that, she disappeared to the moving crowd.

Tyki couldn't believe how easy it had been. Now he and Momo, Clark and Eaze were travelling alone like always, just the four of them. Aislinn Riggs was history. There was no Aislinn Riggs.

Yet, she still existed.

"Damn me and my gentle loving nature," he sarcastically scoffed to himself. Momo turned to look at him. "Did you say something?"

"Me? Nah."

"So where are we going to head from here? North?"

"North's cold," Clark grunted. "And I catch a flu so easily."

Tyki wasn't listening to them anymore, and the voices of his friends disappeared to the noise of the city. He was waiting for something. Something good, something that would spoil his bad side, something like-

A sharp loud ring.

There it was. It echoed through the mist of beings around him and cut through the noise like a blade, and Tyki, as if he had just turned into metal and the ringing sound was a magnet, turned to see the public telephone just a few feet away from them. He grabbed the black telephone and answered it.

Momo, Clark and Eaze were so taken away by their conversation – or then they knew what was soon happening – that they paid no attention to Tyki. And the Noah smiled to himself as he heard the voice of the Earl at the end of the line. It was time. His dark side had been aching for this moment, as terrible as it felt for him to admit it.

"I'm sorry, you guys," Tyki blurted once the call was over. "Something's come up."

…...

"Ex...Excuse me."

Aislinn had stuck her face between the bars of the big iron gate and was calling out someone to open it up for her. A gardener appeared from the back of the big and white Victorian style mansion, and noticed her. "Can I help you, Miss?"

"Yes, my name is Aislinn Riggs," she introduced herself, smiling carefully, "and I come from a town of Sheelow... I'm looking for Denzel- I mean, Master Denzel Kelsley."

The gardener raised his brow at her. "How did you know Young Master's returned home?"

Aislinn couldn't believe her luck. "You mean he is here? I thought that this was the home of his parents..."

"So you didn't know he's just returned," the gardener said a bit gloomy. Aislinn tried to tone down her enthusiasm.

"Ah, you see... I'm... Master Denzel was married to my older sister."

Now some life sparked in the man's grey eyes. "Oh... Ms Bryanna's...?"

Aislinn nodded. The man seemed to hesitate a moment longer, but then he went and opened the gate.

"I apologize. Master Kelsley senior and his wife are currently out having a brunsch, and I was advised not to let anyone in... I'll go inform the butler of the house, he will take you to Young Master Denzel."

Aislinn agreed to wait before the front door, and when she was finally let inside by the stiff yet friendly looking butler, she entered the great hall slowly, like afraid she would scare Denzel away would she hurry her steps too much.

"Young Master will be with you shortly. Wait here, please," the butler told with a small delicate bow, and then she was left alone.

Aislinn stood in silence, looking around herself; there were portraits on the pastel blue walls, and the pair of light marble stairs that led upstairs had been covered with red carpets. And, as she scanned the carpet, step by step, there was suddenly a foot.

She gasped and looked up to see her former brother-in-law there, wearing black boots with black trousers and a white dress shirt. His eyes had the same delicious shade of hot chocolate, and his brown hair had the same lighter highlights the summer sun had created there.

He was gazing down at her from the heights of the stairs, and for a moment neither of the two of them spoke a word nor moved.

Denzel hadn't changed at all from what Aislinn remembered of him. Yet, in his eyes, she had changed quite a lot. For the better and for worse.

"Is it really Aislinn?" he finally said, and a smile spread immediately on Aislinn's face.

"Yes!" she laughed. "Oh, Denzel, I am so happy I found you again!"

He hurried down the stairs and grabbed her from the waist, twirling the giggling woman around like she had still been a child.

"Look at you! What has it been, seven years?" Suddenly he looked embarrassed, even ashamed. "I did not keep my promise, did I."

"Let's not talk about that right now," Aislinn laughed and hugged him tightly. He answered it by embracing her as well. "I could have come here much earlier... Now I'm mad at myself for not doing so!"

"What a wonderful occasíon this is," Denzel laughed, a bit baffled. "I came back yesterday, because my father managed to get in contact with me... I've been abroad so long. It's amazing our paths met like this."

"I've missed you so much, Denzel..." She let go of him to face those wonderful eyes of his again. She had to smile whenever looking into them. "You can't imagine how much."

"I'm sorry. I really am... You must believe me, I didn't forget about you, but after... after Bryanna, I... I haven't felt like myself in a long time..."

Aislinn recognized that expression: That eternal sadness she had first seen in his eyes when he came to Sheelow to tell about Bryanna's death. By years that pained expression had softened up a bit, but it was still alive there, within Denzel's soul. Aislinn looked at him, worried, then hugged him again. "Let's talk about it. I came here for your sake, after all."

He let out a soft laughter, and petted her hair, lovingly, like it had been just a few days since they had last seen each other and played cards in the Riggs' kitchen in Sheelow; him, Aislinn and Bryanna.

"You might be the only one who I can talk about this with," Denzel said gently. "Without any limitations or hold-backs, sweet Linn."

…...

"I've been in Austria for the past five years, fighting the akuma, and before that, I took some personal vacation," told Denzel when they were having tea and sandwiched in the rose garden. "After Bryanna died... You might not understand this, Aislinn, but the position of an Exorcist... We cannot change our believes in fear, or give in to the evil. That is not an option. But I... I don't think I've loved anyone like I loved your sister. The situation her death put me in was frightening above everything else."

Aislinn smiled softly. "I can understand that. I felt the same, and I think I miss her just as much as you do."

"But you never gave in, huh."

"No. And now I look after two brothers and one more sister. Life's been quiet and peaceful in Sheelow." She looked down at her tea cup. "Mum and Dad are still bitter. And they blame it on you."

"It's better than wishing their daughter to be alive again," Denzel murmured. Then, he sat up straighter and sighed, smiling."Linn, you've been brave. Far braver than I've ever been. You've known the truth since I shared it with you, yet I disappeared from your life for seven years when you would have needed me the most." His smile was sad again. "I hope you can forgive me one day."

Aislinn shook her head, laughing. "Denzel, I forgave you ages ago. To be honest, unlike you, I haven't been mourning my sister all this time. For a long time now, the only person who I've been thinking of has been you."

His cheeks turned red, and he had to cough a couple of times to hide his embarrassment. "Me?"

"You were one of my dearest friends," Aislinn explained. "And after I didn't hear from you anymore, I thought that with my sister, I had lost another friend as well. I couldn't bear it, but I didn't have the courage to go after you, either. I stayed in the serenity of Sheelow for years and thought that there would be no point leaving it all behind. I was afraid that... If I did that, I might get hurt."

Denzel listened to her quietly and when she fell silent, he dared to ask, "Then what changed your mind? Why are you here now, Linn?"

She sneered and raised her eyes up on the blue sky. "Something happened a couple of days ago. There were four travellers who stayed at our house and helped to clean up after the storms that raged in Sheelow earlier this week. One of them was a boy, just a little kid, not even in his teens yet. Apparently he had run away from the yard, chasing after a kitten, and fell into an empty well next to a deserted barn. It started raining when I was returning home from downtown – it's amazing that I heard his cries of help through it. Had he been left there, he would have drowned for sure."

"Good God," Denzel whispered.

"For the first time in my life, I was put into a position where I had to decide if I should stay there in the storm trying to rescue the child, or run home to protect my own life," she told, her voice even and calm. "I don't even remember choosing the first option, but that is what I did. I even ripped my dress to haul him up."

She looked back at Denzel and smiled a little. "I carried him home and thought we would both die in that storm, but I made it home. The looks on the other men's faces when they saw who I had with me... I felt such relief that I had had it in me, I simply broke down in tears. At that point I knew... that even if you did hurt me, I would survive." She smiled coyly. "And when I understood that I couldn't stop crying anymore."

"You are teasing me," Denzel grimaced, but with a friendly tone of voice. "That hasn't changed at least. Where are the hobos now?"

"We parted ways already. They escorted me here because they – especially one of them – wanted to repay me for doing what I did. I told him to accompany me here in case he would get an opportunity to save my life instead."

Denzel laughed. "You have an admirer."

"I don't think so, but we parted as friends anyway," Aislinn said. "He was a peculliar man, I'll give you that. A bit goofy but somehow... carismatic. He was such a weird package."

"Who knows, maybe you will meet again," suggested Denzel playfully, and Aislinn's face turned pink.

"I doubt it," she hurried to say, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden. Yet while taking the fragile teacup to her hands, she smiled to herself and added, "But then again, things thought to be impossible happen all the time."

…...

"Ahhh! My beloved brother is back with us!"

Tyki rolled his eyes at Cyril Camelot's cries of happiness, as he entered their dining hall. "Yes, I'm back, brother Cyril." He glanced to the other end of the table, and saw the Earl there, in his human form.

"And just in time!" Cyril, the Noah of Desire said cheerfully. "The Millenium Earl and I were just about to eat dinner. Care to join us?"

"I'm not too hungry, but I will keep you some company," Tyki said and sat down, rather far away from Cyril. The man pouted dramatically, as if offended by this.

"Where have you been these days, Tyki-pet?" the Earl inquired as the servants brought the two of them soup for starters.

"I got to know this little storm-ridden town called Sheelow. Me and my friends got a place to stay for a few days and hot meals in exchange for free labour."

"Sounds terrible," Cyril scoffed and tasted his soup. Then, he grinned maliciously at Tyki. "Where there any cute young ladies running around?"

An image of Aislinn Riggs flashed in Tyki's mind.

"None that I can think of," he said simply.

"Well good, because if no one stole your heart there, you could meet someone special today."

Tyki's brows rose. He wasn't too excited. "I doubt it."

"There is a ball!" Cyril hurried to explain, his narrow eyes gleaming with enthusiasm. "Of course, _I _received an invitation, and of course, with your wonderful reputation in the aristocratic circles, you got an invitation as well."

His Noah brother sneered. "Well, I suppose I'll go," he mumbled. Then, he added with a bit lighter tone, "Dancing with lovely young ladies is always delightful."

Cyril smiled, obviously pleased. "Wonderful! Wonderful! It's a pity it's just you and me... my lovely daughter and the Earl are not coming..." He made another miserable face.

"You must have fun to your heart's content without us, Minister Camelot," the Earl said and sipped his wine. "Try not to cause too much ruckus."

"Ah... Where are we going again?" Tyki asked from Cyril. "A ball, but where?"

"Are you familiar with Marquess Dietrich Kelsley and his lovely wife Lauren?" Cyril inquired, putting his spoon down after he had finished his soup.

"I've heard of them."

"They will be hosting the party at their mansion in Brunsdane."

Tyki had been in the middle of lighting up a cigarette, but Cyril's words stopped him. "Brunsdane?"

"Yes, Brunsdane – that lovely city that contains both heaven and hell so effortlessly. You've been there before, haven't you, Tyki?"

With a small motion, Tyki had lit up that cigarette and sucked in as much as his lungs could hold. Then, he breathed out a giant cloud of thin pearly grey smoke. "Yep, I've been there. I just didn't know I would be going back so soon."


	7. Part 6

"I'm sorry you had to do this," Denzel apologized as Aislinn let him in to her room. She had put on one of Denzel's mother's old ball dresses, and one of the maids had come to help her with her hairdo.

"You don't need to be sorry," Aislinn said with a smile. "It's been a while since I've been to a ball. And a ball this fancy! I have to thank your mother again for borrowing the shoes and the dress..."

"My mother has tons of old dresses that don't fit her anymore," the young man, dressed in his black and fashionable tuxedo, said. "Besides, you thanked her over a hundred times already."

"I did not!"

Denzel couldn't help but smile when seeing her this enthusiastic. She went to the mirror to put on her locket – an 18th birthday gift from her parents – while the maid put on some of the last hair pins to keep her reddish brown hair up.

Suddenly, Denzel felt himself get choked up. He looked away, outside the window, and stated, "You look wonderful."

Aislinn turned to him, flattered. "Thanks. You look handsome too."

He smirked and, as he calmed himself down, turned back to his guest. "I still feel it was too much for me to ask you to accompany me in the ball, though."

"Then I suppose you shouldn't have asked me in the first place," Aislinn laughed, pulling on her long, ivory colored silk gloves.

"It's just... You look so much like her," he blurted out, and immediately regretted for doing so.

Aislinn had frozen for a moment when hearing this. She then slowly looked up at Denzel, her face serious and a bit sad. "Denzel... I am doing this as a friend. I don't intend to take... my sister's place."

Denzel blinked, as if he had waken up from a dream, then turned around flustered.

"O-of course not," he murmured and then laughed it off quickly. "I'm just saying you look beautiful. That is all. I'll be waiting for you downstairs."

"Denzel...!"

But he was already going and shutting the door after him. As Aislinn listened to the sound of his steps fading, she sighed and sat down quietly, letting the maid, who had remained quiet the whole time, put small flowers on her hair.

For the first time since Aislinn had arrived to Brunsdane, she actually regretted for coming at all. Be it seven years or not, apparently even seeing her was hard for Denzel. Maybe that was the real reason why he hadn't contacted her in the first place: he hadn't wanted to have anything to do with Bryanna's family anymore.

And now when Aislinn had come here, he was obviously having mixed feelings about it. He saw Bryanna in Aislinn – and Aislinn wasn't too sure if she liked that.

That tramp Tyki had claimed that Aislinn loved Denzel, but it wasn't entirely true. Aislinn did love Denzel, but she could never love him as anything else but a brother-in-law or a friend. Just an idea of her taking the place of her deceased sister was absurd.

Now the situation was getting uncomfortable: could she turn down Denzel just like that, after searching for him so passionately?

She faced her image from the mirror, and saw her apathetic mood from her own eyes.

"Pull yourself together," she murmured to herself as the maid had left her alone. She walked to the window and looked outside: the first horse carriages were already arriving. Noble ladies and gentlemen.

Aislinn decided to hide her true feelings for now – and accompany Denzel in this party like a true lady.

…...

"Here we are!" Cyril exclaimed as their carriage drove through the big, open iron gates. "They have a fancy looking garden... and the mansion's a good size too."

"You are looking around as if you were going to buy this place," Tyki murmured, and pulled his top hat over his eyes. He had been sleeping for almost a half of the trip.

"Who knows, maybe I will one day," his brother sniggered and sat back down.

Their carriage parked before the stone stairs, and they walked them up together, silent, before entering the great hall.

It was already packed with people; dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons.

"Ah there's the Marquess," Cyril whispered to Tyki, gesturing towards a middle-aged bearded man in a blueish dress uniform; his blonde wife, wearing a luxurious emerald green dress, was standing beside him. "Marchioness Lauren sure gets more beautiful even as she ages..."

"So now you are widening your range to grandmothers?" Tyki murmured bluntly.

"Be quiet, brother, and lighten up. Have fun! Ah," Cyril chuckled and made a small gesture towards the back of the hall, "there's the Duchess and her lovely daughters. And it appears they have some friends with them. How about it?"

Tyki glanced at their direction, only to face about a dozen pairs of eyes which were eagerly staring back at him. They all blushed and turned shyly away to whisper and giggle to each other.

"Cute," he said, with a small condescending smirk. "Like a little group of new-born chicks."

"Fine, be a killjoy," Cyril humphed. "I'll have to go introduce myself to our lovely hostess. At least try to enjoy the party, won't you?"

And without a further a due, the Noah of desire had got in the middle of other visitors and was soon shaking hands and small-talking like a true politician.

Tyki decided to play his role perfectly as well, and soon made his move towards the giggling pack of females.

"Would any of you fine ladies care to dance?" he asked with a gentle smile.

Aislinn was at the upper end of the stairs as she peeked to the hall. She was able to locate Denzel there, talking with other younger aristocrats, and there were his parents...

She encouraged himself to move, and was soon descending the stairs, her one hand sliding down the handrail, and the other holding up her hemlines so she wouldn't trip and break her neck. The dance shoes she had borrowed were a bit too small for her feet, but it didn't matter as long as they wouldn't fall off.

Denzel noticed her as she was in the midway of the stairs, and gave her a warm smile, one that Aislinn couldn't answer as well as she would have wanted to.

The young man made his way through the crowd leaving his friends behind, and as he did this, other people looked up to see what was going on, and who was coming down the stairs.

Aislinn felt her face heat up and her heart start beating faster. She focused her eyes on Denzel so she wouldn't get a stage fright all of a sudden, and soon he was there, taking her hand and escorting her through the crowd like a prince.

…...

As the first dance ended and Tyki had lead the Duchess's youngest daughter away, he noticed Cyril gesturing Tyki to come to him.

"I apologize, my ladies," the Noah of Pleasure turned to say to the nice line of other women, who wished to dance with him. "I'm afraid my brother and I have something to discuss about, but I'll return as soon as possible."

After dealing with a few teasing objections from the aristocratic women, Tyki got back to Cyril, who was was watching something rather intensely. "What is it? I thought you told me to enjoy the party."

"I did," Cyril agreed, his narrow eyes slowly sliding to glance at Tyki, "but I thought you would like to have a target other than those who you just called 'new-born chicks'."

"What on earth are you talking about, you crazy man," Tyki grunted while scratching his jaw. "I'm not here to target anyone."

"Not yet," Minister Camelot sneered, and with a small motion of his hand gestured towards the stairway, "but perhaps once you see this, you will change your mind."

Tyki, slightly rolling his eyes, moved to where Cyril was standing and stretched his neck to see over and past the crowd - and once he finally realized what his brother had been talking about, the Noah of Pleasure stopped breathing for a second out of shock.

"Oh, darn."

"I'll say," Cyril, who was standing right next to Tyki, chuckled with a sinister smirk. "Just look at that posture. Look at her hair and those wonderful creamy shoulders. Those eyes that look like pits of dark blue ink, ready to suck in the unfortunate souls of the men she meets..."

"Brother, you are not a poet no matter how hard you try."

"No but just watching her makes me feel like one!" Cyril sniggered, making Tyki snort.

Out of all this country's balls, Aislinn Riggs had had to end up in this one. What were the odds, seriously, Tyki thought to himself rather unimpressed. He did not like this at all.

They were able to see Aislinn and her date over the dozens of aristocratic heads. She was wearing a dark blue dress, and her hair had been gathered up with pearl hair pins and decorated with small forget-me-nots.

"She looks far better with her hair down." The sentence got out from Tyki's mouth before he managed to stop himself.

"Yes, yes! I bet she-" Cyril fell silent when he fully understood what his Noah brother had just said. Stunned, he turned to Tyki.

"No way... You and her?"

The Noah of Pleasure shrugged slightly. "Well, not really."

"Brother, you are amazing," Cyril gasped with such admiration Tyki couldn't help feeling embarrassed.

"Cut it out, she's not my lover or anything!" he growled with low voice. "Just some woman I met back in Sheelow."

Minister Camelot raised his brow, then turned his head to look at Aislinn again. A bit suspicious, he asked, "You mean she's not an aristocrat?"

Tyki shook his head. He had just noticed the golden haired young man standing beside her, so close one could have actually thought they were a couple.

"No, just a daughter of a banker." Then, after watching Aislinn with her date, he added with a condescending sneer: "Apparantly the little prince by her side is her former brother-in-law."

"Hoo..." Cyril was instantly interested. "So she has a divorced sister?"

"A dead sister," Tyki specified nonchalantly.

"Damn it," Cyril cursed under his breath, "I suppose it would have been too dreamy..." Looking almost disappointed, he watched the woman in a blue dress for a while, before whispering to Tyki, "So, what are you waiting for?"

"I'm not going there, she'll recognize me."

"Do hobos walk around in tuxedos and look astonishing these days?" Cyril asked with raised brows.

"No, but-"

"Then there is no problem, is there? Unless..." A devilish grin spread on Cyril's face, and Tyki found himself leaning away from his creepy expression."Unless what?"

"Unless you, Tyki-pet, are _afraid._"

Now that was a word he did not like to hear. "Afraid? Me? Of what?"

"Yes. Afraid of her. Why, that I do not know. Should she recognize you, what could she say to harm you? 'You are the hobo I saw in Sheelow!'" Cyril laughed. "Who would believe her, a poor banker's daughter, saying something as ridiculous as that?"

Tyki clenched his jaw. His fellow Noah had a point.

"Instead of being afraid, why don't you just swoon there and dazzle the little beauty, so that she can see no other man in the entire room? You would like that, wouldn't you, Mr. Pleasure?" Cyril smiled at him, then glanced at the couple at the end of the stairs with narrowed eyes. "You would love to steal her attention from that pompous little son of the marquess."

Tyki listened to him carefully before turning his attention back to Aislinn Riggs. The "pompous" date, Denzel, had been holding her from the waist ever since she had appeared, and, although she did not try to push him away, she was looking rather unsure and timid with him. It was a surprising change, considering how eager she had been to find him in the first place.

Such state of mind did not fit her attitude or appearance at all, thought Tyki. Denzel, however, was so delighted by her mere existence that he was unable to see what his undivided attention was doing to her. For him, she was something he had regained after so many years of emptiness. His pride prohibited him from seeing that the young woman right there, standing next to him, was visibly suffocating.

The corner of Tyki's mouth twisted into a smirk, as he felt sudden urge to interfere.

"I suppose there is no point denying that I would like that."

Satisfied, Cyril nodded and patted Tyki on the back. "Have fun hunting, then."

…...

"...And these are Lord Thomas and Lady Julia Crawford," Denzel introduced Aislinn to the young couple, who were beaming at them like a pair of small suns. "Thomas, Julia, this is Aislinn Riggs."

"Whaaat a pleasure to meet you!" said Julia, expanding some of the syllables for no good reason. "You look stunning, daaarling."

Aislinn was waiting Julia to end each sentence with a "baa".

"Indeed, you are surely one of the most beautiful ladies there is at this party," said Lord Thomas, gallantly ignoring his sheep-like wife. He took Aislinn's glove-covered hand to his and leaned in to kiss it. "I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you before in Brunsdane."

"I'm simply visiting," Aislinn quickly told, Denzel's hand burning on her side. It had been there ever since she had got down the stairs, and it had started to irritate her by now. But she couldn't make herself shrug his arm off just like that.

"How long aaare you planning to stay?" Julia asked out of curiousity.

"I'll have to return to Sheelow in two days," the young woman answered, but her sentence was cut by Denzel:

"Then again, who knows? Maybe Aislinn will stay a tad bit longer. Brunsdane's a wonderful city, after all."

"Definitely," Thomas agreed, nodding his head.

"Where aaare you staying at the moment, then?" Julia questioned, and before Aislinn could even answer, Denzel was there again. "She's currently staying with my family as a guest."

"Oh! Aren't you a lucky girl," Julia said with a great toothy smile, her tone shrill and full of faked kindness. Aislinn was old enough to know that visitations of unmarried young women were not considered too honorable, especially when they were visiting a young, single aristocrat.

"I am lucky to have a friend like Denzel," she admitted and forced a smile on her lips. "But, as I said, I will be staying here only two days, before returning to Sheelow."

"Sheelow?" Julia seemed to chew the word a moment in her wide pink mouth. "I did not know there aaare aristocraaats in that little village."

Denzel let out a small grunt.

"There aaaren't," Aislinn said cheerfully, and apparantly all but Julia understood the mocking tone of her voice. "My father's a banker."

For a moment, Julia looked like Aislinn had just called her with names. "Excuse me?"

"A baaanker," Aislinn repeated with a friendly smile, while Denzel's fingers seemed to clasp her side tighter. "And, since we are living in a little village, we don't have that many opportunities to attend such flashy balls like this. It's been a while since I've danced."

"Then, perhaps my lady would like to dance with me?"

Their party of four turned their heads as a slender man with slightly darker skin, black flowy hair and handsome face, stepped to them. He was looking straight at Aislinn, and the woman couldn't answer him with anything more but a stare.

"Excuse me?" Denzel managed to ask, his face saying 'can't you see I'm the one holding her from the waist?'

"A simple dance, my lady, that is all I ask" the mystery man said straight at Aislinn, ignoring Denzel and Julia and Thomas completely. The stranger had offered his hand.

Aislinn looked at his magnicifent eyes for a moment, spell-bound, before turning to Julia and Thomas and saying "Excuse me." She found herself reaching and grabbing the offered hand, and most importantly, stepping away from Denzel's clutches.

"Yes. I would love to dance, dear sir."

She could feel the burning place on her waist, where Denzel had been keeping his hand, cooling down now as she and the mysterious handsome man walked to the dance floor.

He winded his arm around her waist, pressing their chests together, and for the first time during the entire party Aislinn felt like herself again. The man's golden brown eyes glimmered mischievously, and the woman in his arms soon smiled warmly at him.

"Whoever you are, you're a life saver."

Tyki Mikk smiled at her notification, as they swooned around the dance floor graciously. "Thought so. You looked like you were drowning there, my lady."

Aislinn blinked her eyes once, before starting to giggle. When he twirled her, she was already laughing, "And yet, it seems you were the only one who noticed it, my lord."

Tyki Mikk enjoyed watching her like that: she had got that spark back, and her dark eyes were as mischievous and full of life as ever. "That is what life savers do, don't they? They save people from drowning," he remarked, and as the soft melodies of the orchestra toned down, he pulled the giggling woman back to him.

For a second, he felt the scent of her hair in his nostrils again, like back in their house in Sheelow. Aislinn looked at him, her head tilted on the side a little, as if she had been evaluating a statue. Her lips had curved into a small smirk, and she wasn't giving any thought to his precious brother-in-law.

"Maybe Lord Lifesaver would like to have another dance with me?"

Tyki grinned, but not politely. He looked almost smug. "Definitely, if my lady asks for it."

Hunt was over. He had won.


	8. Part 7

"My, Minister Camelot... It appears your brother has got his eyes on Ms Riggs there. They have danced through four pieces already."

"Madame Delarois, a brother can only hope," Cyril said with a small polite bow. He had been watching Tyki and his pretty dance partner for a while now, too, and liked what he was seeing. "Lord Tyki has an eye for beauty, and Ms Riggs is truly a beauty."

"Well, I do not know about that," said Lady Isabelle Hamilton, her face a bit sour. "It is true she has a cute face, but she is a mere working class girl. An Earl such as Lord Tyki Mikk could never consider someone like that as a possible bride candidate."

"Now now, Lady Isabelle," Cyril hurried to calm her down, "I am certain that my brother isn't looking for a bride at the moment, but then again, you never know. I certainly hope he would settle down like I did with my precious Tricia."

"Wasn't Ms Riggs here to escort The Marquesse's son?"

"Oh, you mean Denzel?" Madame Delarois inquired. "He's been busy discussing with his old friends. There he is, standing with his father the Marquesse."

Cyril gazed at them also, and couldn't help but wonder why the young master hadn't gone and tried to dance with Ms Riggs himself. Was he keeping his distance because he feared she might not want him close? He couldn't have given up just because Tyki had so effortlessly stolen away his escort! Tyki could keep the woman to himself for the entire ball if no one would interfere. He could do that just for the sake of bullying other males – and then ruthlessly forget about her the minute the ball would be over.

"Oh, what is this?" gasped Lady Hamilton, turning Cyril's attention back to the dance floor. The latest dance had just ended, and Aislinn Riggs had let go of Tyki. She seemed to say something to him, probably a thank you, and then, after a curtsey, she had left the dance floor, rushing back to her escort.

"How dares she," Madame Delarois sneered with mixed shock and amusement. "Leaving Young Master Denzel just like that and then returning to him alone, leaving Earl Tyki behind... Do they not teach any manners on the countryside these days?"

Cyril had already hurried to his Noah brother, making comments about their dances as if he had just returned from a game of tennis. "-Seriously what was with that ending? How could she leave you just like that?"

"Just like that?" Tyki repeated with a snort. "Were you gone this entire time and missed the fact that we had four entire dances together?"

"I know, but I was waiting for... something more!" Cyril exclaimed. "There was nothing surprising in this result!"

"You should have given me further introductions before I went to ask her to dance," Noah of Pleasure groaned, shaking his head while passing by his brother. "I'll go out for a smoke."

"The smoking room is just down the hall-"

"Yeah, but I feel like smoking outside." Tyki glanced over his shoulder. "It's a beautiful night after all."

Giving a little playful smirk to Cyril, Tyki made his way outside.

Minister Camelot had to smile a little when watching him advance towards the doors. In the end, it seemed Tyki had learned to enjoy this ball after all.

…...

"Denzel!" Aislinn exclaimed joyfully as she grabbed the young man's arm in the crowd, turning his full attention to her. "Please, would you come and dance with me?"

"Aislinn, I'm sort of in the middle of something here," the young man said with a small uneasy smile, and the woman saw an elderly man with moustache standing behind Denzel and now staring straight at her. They had apparently been talking about something important.

"I'm terribly sorry," she murmured quickly, lowering her gaze.

"You should be." The man with the moustache dared to speak. "Some people have some nerve to interrupt other people's conversation like that..."

He was scowling down at Aislinn, making the young woman uncertain how she should respond to this kind of attitude.

"Where did your dance partner disappear to, my dear?" The man added with a small sardonic smile. It was obvious he was laughing at Aislinn in his head. "It seemed like you two were having fun with each other."

"We did have fun," the woman encouraged herself to say. She tried to hide her cold tone with a gentle smile. "It's always wonderful when there are young men around, ready to dance with a girl through the night... Don't you think so too?"

"And while you dance, some people are more concerned with the state of our country than the amount of time they spend waltzing!"

The other elderly men around chuckled in groups like school girls.

"Ah, is that how it is," Aislinn said smiling. "And here I thought old men just lack stamina and vitality compared to the younger ones."

The elderly man's smile disappeared in a matter of seconds.

Denzel coughed "excuse me" and took Aislinn's hand, leading her to one of the less crowded corners of the hall.

He whispered: "Aislinn, that was Duke Delarois I was speaking to!"

"He could have been the King for all I care," she answered with a low, expressionless tone.

"You can't say things like that." Denzel made Aislinn turn her head to him. "What he said was true after all: you were giving all your time to that Earl."

"Since when has dancing been prohibited from me?" Aislinn snapped back at him. She was getting tired of this circus. "I am not a married or an engaged woman; I can dance with whoever I want without taking such condescending comments from complete strangers."

"The Duke didn't think it was appropriate, that is all."

"Why not?" she questioned. "I am not your fiancée, so what reason does he have to get upset?"

"Well it was rather impolite!" Denzel suddenly growled at her. "You were practically glued to him for over an hour!"

Aislinn lifted her nearly black eyes at Denzel, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"Oh for God's sake, Denzel," she snorted, "don't you start preaching me as well. I thought I made it perfectly clear that we cannot be and are not a couple."

"I am not having this conversation here," Denzel hissed from between his teeth, turning his head away.

Aislinn made her move quickly. "Then we will take it outside!" She grabbed his wrist, and before he was able to stop her, she had lead him outside and to the gardens.

…...

"Now then!" Aislinn blurted as they reached a small opening. "Let's hear it! What have I done wrong today?"

"Don't be melodramatic, Aislinn, you haven't done anything wrong." Denzel's voice was gentle, yet hushed, as if he had been scared of something.

"You just said that I was impolite when I went and danced with that Earl."

"Aislinn, please..."

"Just tell me truth, Denzel!" she suddenly ordered, and he turned to the young woman, shocked of her sudden loudness. "This isn't about me at all, is it? It's Bryanna."

The man swallowed air and turned his head away from Aislinn for a second. She stood there, quiet, waiting him to say something.

"You haven't recovered from her death at all, have you, Denzel?"

"And am I to blame for that?"

He turned back at her, and as the light of the full moon and the lit-up torches in the garden glowed in the night, Denzel Kelsley looked suddenly so much older, as if he had aged over a decade in just a few years.

"Your sister was everything to me, Aislinn," the man stated firmly. "We went through all kinds of things together. Loved each other. And when she died... When I isaw/i her die..."

He shook his head.

"The things I saw... I cannot forget any of it. When I go to bed and close my eyes, she's there, right in front of me; mangled, burnt, unrecognizable. Just the way she looked like before we incinerated her. "

"Denzel..."

"Seeing the love of your life practically melt down before your eyes... It would mess anyone up, right?"

He smiled bitterly to himself, before looking back at Aislinn. Seeing the young woman stand there, in the dim light of the night, all the bitterness faded away, only to be replaced with warmth.

"And after all these years of suffering... You waltz in. You, who have grown to look so much like Bryanna. "

There was a sinking feeling in Aislinn's stomach as she stared back at Denzel's hopeful expression. "But I am not her. I've said that before."

"Perhaps you could give me a chance to-"

"Don't be foolish!" the woman blurted, unable to hold herself back. "Listen to yourself! I am not my sister's replacement, or your new pass to happiness!"

"Aislinn, please," he begged, "be reasonable." She stepped away from the young man as he tried to take her hand.

"I am being reasonable," she said angered, "you are the one who's betraying my sister here."

The second she had said this, Denzel's expression darkened dangerously. "How dare you..."

"I could pity you 'til the end of our lives, but that's got to end at some point anyway," Aislinn declared, while watching her brother-in-law's anger grow before her eyes. "You are not the one who got killed. Bryanna was."

"How dare you say that!" the man was shouting now like a wounded animal. "She was everything to me! You have no idea-"

"She was my older sister! My best friend!" she screamed back at him. "Don't patronize me and think I don't understand any of your sorrow! I knew her and loved her FAR longer than you ever did!"

Denzel was in front of her in a second, gripping her shoulders in a painful manner, as if he was going to crush Aislinn. His breath smelled like cognac. No wonder he was like this, alcohol can do terrible things to one's mind...

No, Aislinn thought. There was no excuse for this. She wouldn't make any for his sake, either.

"I'll go crazy, Aislinn, if you don't do this for me," he gasped with a muffled voice, eyes wide and tensed arms shaking. His fingers were clasping her shoulders so tightly it'd definitely leave bruises. Aislinn feared he would snap and actually hit her. "Let me love you and love me back, please... I know you can do that, you are a kind like her; you two have so much in common... I will do everything..."

"You," Aislinn said as she took a deep breath, "can go to hell."

This stopped the man for a second. Again, he saw his beloved there. He had seen that same determined expression before. He had loved that expression.

"Bryanna," he whispered with a hoarse voice. The young woman she had in his arms let out a small whimper as he leaned closer, his fingers in her neck, pulling her forward.

Before Aislinn managed to break free from his hands, he was kissing her mouth, his lips hot and soft, almost feverish.

She froze with terror and felt sick all of a sudden. She tried to pull her arm back to punch him in the stomach, but he was holding her too close too tightly.

Aislinn finally managed to break the kiss and gasp, "Stop it!" but Denzel had no intention of leaving her. He pulled her back to him, arms winding around her waist like large snakes, and kissed her again. Aislinn felt her balance fail as the man tripped her with his foot and forced down on the ground.

Horror spread through Aislinn's body as the panic was getting the best of her.

"Denzel-! No-!"

...

-A few minutes earlier-

Tyki Mikk stood further away from the fighting couple. He was hiding behind one of the tall, trimmed bushes of the blooming garden, listening to Aislinn Riggs and Denzel Kelsley quarrel.

"Guess I was wrong," he mused in his head and blew out some smoke. He had been one hundred percent sure that the young woman had been in love with the young aristocrat. Perhaps it would have been too dramatic to be true, like one of those Shakespeare's plays.

"I am being reasonable! You are the one who's betraying my sister here," Tyki heard Aislinn snarl at her too-eager admirer. The Noah stifled a chuckle, his shoulders trembling with laughter. Poor Denzel... Little Ms Riggs sounded quite scary there.

It was very amusing, considering the fact that just a moment ago on the dance floor Aislinn Riggs had been beaming with joy. Despite the shock of the moment when Tyki had first seen her in the ball, he had had fun dancing with her, too. And she hadn't noticed a thing. She hadn't recognized him.

As they had twirled around the dance floor through several pieces of music, held each other close and then parted for a second just to get close again, Tyki had once again got back that small funny feeling he had felt in the Riggs' bathroom.

"Lust," he mumbled to himself. Had to be lust.

Women were devious like that. They were lots of fun, too, but a great pain in the arse if one wasn't careful enough. And Aislinn Riggs was as devious as any other woman, with those dark and cold eyes... Stern voice...

And a nice body...

Good grief, Tyki laughed to himself, I'm all smitten, aren't I?

He snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Denzel shout, and Aislinn replied to this by screaming back at him. It was starting to sound awfully serious, and Tyki wondered if he should just get back inside, dance with other women and drank good wine. If either Aislinn or Denzel would storm past him and notice that he'd been listening, it would just get problematic.

He dropped his cigarette bud on the ground and stepped on it. Time to get this ball wrapped up...

"Stop it!"

Aislinn's scream made Tyki freeze on his tracks. Now it definitely sounded serious.

For a second he tried to decide whether just leave, but curiosity got the best of him. He peeked behind the bushes and saw the young couple down on the ground. The woman was squirming and kicking the air, but the young man topping her didn't seem to mind.

Oh darn.

"Denzel-! No-!"

Tyki grimaced at the sight and hid behind the bushes again. To leave or not to leave. Rapists were lowest of the low, even he thought so. Then again, he wasn't too worried about humans in general, just his dear comrades...

Tyki felt how his dark side was getting enthusiastic – he could move there in a blink of an eye and just kill Young Master Denzel. And while at it, perhaps even—

There was a muffled groan, followed by low wailing sound, and some gasping. "You IDIOT!"

Tyki peeked again, and saw Aislinn standing beside Denzel, her dress dirty and hair a mess – but other than that she seemed fine. Apparently she'd finally managed to knee him to the groin, and wasn't going to stop there.

Tyki winced, his male side feeling deep pity towards the man on the ground, as he saw the young woman lift her leg up. He had never seen a woman stomp on a man's groin with such determination, over and over again.

"How dare you! How dare you!"

"Aislinn-!"

"You pathetic weasel-!"

The woman screamed as the man managed to grab her other leg, and she fell over on the ground. The man stood up, though his legs were shaking from pain, and Tyki made his move.

...

Aislinn let out a yelp as a dark figure appeared out of nowhere and slammed his fist against the back of Denzel's head. The young man let out a hoarse groan and fell limb on the ground. He didn't stand up anymore.

Aislinn looked up the stranger, unable to see him properly in the dark night. The shadows the garden torches made were especially dark, and she could only tell that he was wearing a top hat and a tuxedo.

"Young women like you shouldn't be outdoors at this time of the night," the stranger said, his voice chiming with amusement and... something else...

"Even the finest men turn beasts at night time."

"Have we met before?" Aislinn managed to gasp as she stood up. Her chest was heaving up and down as she tried to calm herself. "You seem somehow familiar..."

"Ah, you don't recognize me? The good Earl who was dancing with you just moments ago."

The Earl? But...

"I am terribly sorry you had to see this," Aislinn said softly, her eyes sliding down at Denzel, who was lying on the ground. Her heart was sore with pity for him. "I thank you for your help."

"No need to thank, Ms Riggs."

Aislinn turned back to the man. She remembered how the Earl had looked like; a handsome man with black hair and dazzling golden eyes. But now, when she concentrated just on his voice... His voice was...

The woman's eyes widened slightly, and she took a step closer. "I remember you."

The man's voice rose an octave as he laughed nervously, turning away. "What are you talking about? I'm certain we haven't met before-"

As Tyki felt a pair of warm hands, clad in silk gloves, rest on his cheeks, he heard himself fall silent. He had to face the dark blue eyes of Aislinn Riggs. Her body pressed against his, her warm breath touched Tyki's lips, making them tingle slightly.

Her rosy mouth moved, sighing out a name.

"Tyki," she whispered, her expression lighting up. "Tyki Mikk."


	9. Part 8

"You are Tyki, aren't you?" Aislinn smiled.

"Actually, I'm an Earl," Tyki said sheepishly. "So it'd be Earl Tyki Mikk."

"I didn't recognize you before, you look so... different," Aislinn said quickly after thinking up a proper adjective. "But now when I wasn't distracted by your looks, I could concentrate on your voice... You fooled me quite long there."

Tyki's mouth turned into a smug smirk. "You mean you were so caught up with my pretty face that you ignored everything else?"

"I'm saying you had me fooled there," she repeated suddenly stern.

Tyki let it drop, pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. "I suggest we continue this conversation elsewhere. That little Prince Charming of yours will wake up soon."

Aislinn glanced at Denzel's unconscious body once again. "I can't go back inside. I look terrible."

Tyki grinned, the cigarette between his teeth. "Then we won't go back inside."

...

"You never mentioned that you were actually an Earl," Aislinn Riggs pointed out as she and Tyki were walking down the streets of Brunsdane. The night was warm and smelled of jasmine trees.

"I didn't feel the need to do that," the man said hands in his pockets. He glanced at the woman quickly and added, "By the way – what on earth are you wearing?"

"Oh, this?"

After deciding to go on a nightly stroll, Aislinn had slipped inside the mansion for a brief minute before coming back outside. She was now wearing an ordinary and plain brown maid dress. It had a smudge on its hemline.

"I picked this up from the servants' laundry basket..." Aislinn admitted humbly. "It belongs to one of the maids in the house. Apparently she had dropped a saucer on the floor and got splashed with tea... You can't really see it, can you? The smudge, I mean."

The Noah of pleasure kept gazing her from the corner of his eye. She now looked the same as back when Tyki and his companions had appeared to the Riggs's porch: bland.

Nothing special.

Average.

"There is something very weird about you," Tyki said, making the woman turn to him.

"What do you mean?"

"I wish I knew. You remind me of a peacock."

Aislinn frowned, and seeing her unimpressed expression, Tyki hurried to explain:

"Ah... Not that I mean anything bad by it. Peacocks look pretty ordinary birds before they reveal their wonderful feathers."

"Those are male peacocks."

"It doesn't really matter. My point is that you look pretty bland normally, but, like in that ball... You revealed your feathers. I had fooled you by hiding my aristocratic identity - I was fooled by you in return."

A cheeky smile appeared on her lips. "My lord," she sneered, "it'd have been enough if you had just stated that I looked beautiful in a formal dress."

Tyki groaned, making the woman chuckle. "Never mind. I can't explain it well enough."

They both fell silent for a moment, and Aislinn wondered the streets they were descending.

The apartments and shop windows looked luxurious and well-maintained. There were still people walking around in downtown, and even some stores were still open. The lampposts shone their gentle golden light on the streets beautifully.

Compared to Sheelow, everything in Brunsdane was breathtaking to Aislinn.

"I suppose I should ask this," she finally said, breaking the silence and the lonely sounds of their footsteps, "where are we going, or are we just walking around?"

Tyki burst in laughter. "Shouldn't you have asked that _before_ you decided to join me?"

"Not really," Aislinn mused, sounding quite carefree. "Of heading out for a walk or facing Denzel and his family, you were the nicer option."

Tyki sneered softly. "Nicer, you say..."

"So where are we going?"

The man seemed to ponder the question a moment. It was as if both of them had just wanted to get out from the ball and simply be alone. With each other.

"There's a small night-time café by the river bend," Tyki remembered. "It's quite cosy and no one ever asks any questions there, meaning we won't stand out from the other customers."

"Meaning you have been to Brunsdane before." Aislinn smirked. "You liar."

"Most people would regard a lying person as unreliable too, Ms Aislinn," Tyki said, slowly turning his golden eyes at the woman beside him. He tried to appear intimidating for his own amusement, but the woman did not seem too frightened.

Instead she said, "You will be horribly disappointed when I tell that I find you very docile."

Tyki's brows rose. "Docile?"

"Like a sheep," the woman declared.

"Do I have to remind you that I just knocked out that escort of yours? Sheep don't knock out people just like that!"

"I'm sorry, did I offend you?" she sniggered, eyes sparkling with the lights of downtown. "Should I squeal in fear?"

Tyki scoffed. The fact that he was bullied like this would have annoyed him if it hadn't been so... human. It was soothing.

"Why did you save me in the first place, sir? If you are so unreliable."

"I told you didn't I?" Tyki said, turning his attention back to Aislinn. "That I would pay back for saving Eaze."

Aislinn glanced at him, now oddly bashful, and her cheeks began turning red with embarrassment. "Ah... Yes. Of course."

The Noah of Pleasure chuckled when he noticed the woman's expression. "Were you waiting for other kind of answer?" Now it was his turn to tease her.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Should I say something knight-like?" he suggested, smirking. "Something like this, perhaps?"

Suddenly, he pulled her closer from the waist and leaned a bit forward, making her let out a small gasp. His lips, almost brushing her auricle, whispered:

"I would hate if men, other than me, saw you in your undergarments."

Aislinn got flustered immediately and pushed Tyki quickly away. The man chuckled, but she gathered herself quickly and snapped: "Don't make me laugh."

"I don't see you laughing."

Tyki was starting to wonder if he should do as Cyril had suggested and truly steal the woman for himself, if just for this night. He was starting to think it would be a wonderful idea. And, reading Aislinn's reaction and body language, he might actually be able to do it. Perhaps it was time to turn on the charm he so often used with the aristocratic ladies.

"You don't need to be shy, Ms Aislinn," Tyki stated with a small smile, walking close to her. Soon the pair of dark eyes turned back to Tyki as Aislinn Riggs looked at him. The red on her cheeks was fading away.

The Noah of Pleasure stopped walking, and as she followed his example, she noticed they had reached the night cafe: a very idyllic, light red apartment with an "Open" sign hanging on its green front door.

"Now that we are here," Tyki said with that low voice of his somewhere next to her, "why don't we just enjoy ourselves?"

...

The night cafe's name was Hideout; soon Aislinn came to realize that the name was based on truth. It was a hideout: the lights were dim and red. Dark wine-red wallpapers covered the walls all over, and the wide and tall armchairs and tables were also dark, almost black, completely wrapping the customers in their quiet privacy. The air was thick and smelled of sweat and liquor and moist tablecloth they used to wipe the tables clean. From the doorway, Aislinn couldn't tell how many customers were sharing the same space as she and Tyki.

The bartender looked up to greet them behind his counter, his very own kingdom of bottles, and watched closely as the couple sat on a table in the corner of the room. When Aislinn sat down on the soft satin, she felt very cosy and warm, as if she had been sitting in someone's lap. She even turned to check that the darkness hadn't hidden anyone from her.

"What can I get you two lovebirds?" asked a waitress, who had appeared beside their table all of a sudden. She was in her mid-50's and wearing such a tight corset it was almost overflowing with her flesh.

Lovebirds, Aislinn realized her words. She was going to correct her, but Tyki was too fast making his order.

"Just a bottle of red wine and two glasses, please."

"Is Château Noir okay?"

"Sounds delicious."

The woman only slightly glanced at Aislinn, but decided not to say anything. She turned quickly and went to get their wine.

"Lovebirds."

Aislinn startled, realized she had been staring her hands the entire time and finally looked up to face Tyki. He was smirking at her from the depths of his armchair. "Apparently we look good together."

Aislinn sneered. "Or she thought that I'm your tonight's escort. At least you didn't bother to correct her."

Tyki raised his brow, confused why it was such a big deal. "I can do that, once she comes back."

"No, don't bother – she won't believe you anyway."

"Can you blame her?" the man laughed with that velvety dark voice of his. "You are wearing a maid's clothes and I look – well, someone who might take young maids like you into little night-time cafes, order cheap wine to get them drunk and then leave with them to God knows where."

"Sounds like you have done this a few times," Aislinn murmured coldly, but she only managed to amuse Tyki even more.

"And you sound jealous for no good reason. Relax." He had taken off his top-hat, opened his jacket and looked comfortable in his chair. He leaned his head to his hand and watched Aislinn. "You were the one who told me I was docile, right? Then you have no reason to fear I would try something inappropriate."

Aislinn didn't say anything to that, just snorted at his smug smile and turned away, unable to take his intense gaze.

"Maybe you would want to tell why you even wanted to find that douche bag prince of yours," Tyki proposed. "He seemed a bit... unstable."

"He's mad with grief," Aislinn said, and it slightly irritated Tyki that she actually bothered to defend that pathetic son of Marquis. "I can't be angry at him."

"You-"

The man fell silent as the waitress brought them their bottle of wine and glasses. She didn't even bother to fill them but turned on her heels and was gone in no time. Tyki grunted and poured himself some wine, took the glass into his hand and sipped it.

It tasted like what it was: cheap.

"You said that it had been seven years since you had last met," he said, voice steady and calm as always. The bitter aftertaste of the wine was tickling at the back of his throat. "You can't grieve someone that long."

"Not true," Aislinn protested firmly. "You can, it just means one hasn't taken the time to mourn properly. I think Denzel has just suffocated his true feelings and worked all this time – and now he's worn himself out."

"What a wonderful excuse to assault a woman," Tyki mused out loud, his tone even. "Never heard that one before."

The young woman pouted her lips and watched the man pour her some wine. She then took the glass to her hands. "I had no idea he had been so devastated by Bryanna's death. He always appeared so collected in my eyes."

"Well... You were but a child when your sister passed away," Tyki reminded her. "He was an adult. It's understandable he wanted to act strong in your presence."

Aislinn tasted her wine and grimaced when Tyki wasn't looking. She wouldn't drink another drop.

"And now when I am adult, he can't act strong no matter how hard he tries."

"Men get like that in front of pretty young ladies sometimes," the man teased her and sipped the wine before pushing it back onto the table. "I suspect it's you who's changed, not him. I saw the painting of your sister back in your house, and you two do have a similar appearance."

"That's ridiculous," Aislinn laughed shaking her head. "My sister was way more beautiful."

"In your eyes, perhaps," Tyki said. He didn't even realize how low and charming his voice had got. "But through a man's eyes – through my eyes – you have her appearance. Besides... The bold truth is that you are still alive, which only enhances your charm. Your deceased sister cannot compete with that."

The woman sitting opposite to Tyki frowned sadly.

"Did I say too much?" Tyki inquired without sounding too worried.

"No," she said quickly. She fingered the glass in her hands. "No. You are right. As much as I would like to say you are not."

Tyki grinned, and they both fell silent.

A small man stepped up to the tiny stage at the back of the bar and began playing his guitar. Soft melodies filled every shady corner, and Aislinn leaned back and closed her eyes to listen. One couple stood up, walked towards the stage and began dancing together, slowly, bodies against each other so tightly it looked as if they were one being.

Tyki watched the dark couple move in the rhythm of the guitar. The cheap wine he had drank was working its magic in his brain. It was almost like this night bar had been a world of its own and there would be nothing too important outside it.

He turned his head at Aislinn Riggs, who had leaned back and to be embraced by the cushions of the great arm-chair. Supporting his head with his arm, Tyki Mikk let his eyes linger up and down her; the pale and smooth skin, the closed eye-lids and slightly parted lips; the chest that was heaving up and down peacefully, and the arms that were crossed on her lap.

"Would you care to dance?" he asked, breaking the mystical silence that had descended upon them, and Aislinn opened her eyes slowly, dreamy.

"Dance?" she said.

Tyki nodded. "This is not as grand and glamorous as the great hall of Marquis and Marchioness Kelsley, but I have this feeling..."

She knitted her brows together. "What kind of a feeling?"

The Noah glanced at the dancing couple, before turning his eyes back at the woman in front of him.

"That if we danced here," he specified, "it'd be different than back at the Kelsley mansion."

"Different, huh."

"More intimate."

Aislinn's eyes were now completely open, and they looked at Tyki in the dim red light.

She felt hot and blamed it on the bad wine she had only sipped. Her legs felt weak and blamed it on tiredness.

But she also felt her heart flutter and couldn't think up any excuse for that. This man had cast some kind of spell around her, she was certain of it. As she reached her hand out and Tyki Mikk grabbed it, pulling her up, and they walked together to the small open area that no aristocrat could have called dance floor, Aislinn felt even weaker.

He slid his arm to the small of her back but it certainly felt different this time. He pulled her against him, chest against chest, and took her right hand to his. Without a word, Aislinn rest her head against the nape of his neck and as she breathed in, he could smell his cologne, his skin.

He had left his jacket on the arm-chair, and Aislinn couldn't help but think that the only thing that separated her hand from touching his bare skin was just thin fabric of his dress-shirt.

Tyki Mikk watched the woman in his arms as they slowly began to move, only inch by inch as if they had been tied to each other.

If I move away even an inch, something invisible will break, he thought to himself.

It was weird, and he realized in secret horror that the word he had used to simply entice the young woman to his arms was actually very true. They were now tied to each other by an invisible, mischievous web of intimacy, and the smell of Aislinn's hair and her body pressed against Tyki's were now drugging him like no wine ever could.

As the sour guitar player fingered the strings of his guitar, Tyki recognized the urge building up inside of him. He moved the hand he had wrapped around Aislinn's waist to break the spell, but he realized he couldn't move it away but only tighter around her.

Her body recognized this better than her mind did, and without even thinking about it, Aislinn sighed softly.

Inside of Tyki, there was a battle – his dark and light personalities were clashing together, mixing and he wouldn't know what he wanted to do as a human, and what he wanted to do as a Noah.

Everything he felt was somehow primitive and empowered and this eerie atmosphere that was living with the tunes of the guitar only enhanced his desire.

Yet in the midst of his lust and hunger struck something new as he saw the woman raise her head and look into his eyes in calm manner.

He remembered. These eyes. This calm and accepting expression.

For Heaven's sake, thought Tyki.

He had killed Bryanna Riggs.


	10. Part 9

"I must thank you for tonight, lord Tyki," Aislinn said as Tyki was escorting her back to the Kelsley Manor. "I have to explain Denzel that I cannot stay with him. I'll book a room from a hotel or an inn and head back to Sheelow as soon as I can."

"Yeah... That sounds reasonable."

Tyki had been in his thoughts ever since he had understood what was so familiar about Aislinn Riggs. For God's sake, he had seen Bryanna Riggs' face in that family portrait in the Riggs's dining room and still hadn't remembered her!

And if Bryanna Riggs had been an Exorcist, and Denzel Kelsley had been her husband...

"I better stay here," Tyki said as they reached the Kelsley Manor's gate. He smiled a little cautiously as Aislinn turned to him; he was real puzzled how to cope with his sudden recognition of his. "You shouldn't have to explain why you left and came back here alone with me."

The woman smiled sheepishly. "I suppose you're right," she admitted while looking down.

For a moment back in the night cafe, she had been sure he would kiss her – and that she would kiss him back. But in the end, Tyki had turned his head away, held her close and just danced with her, 'til the guitar man had stopped playing and the beautiful melodies faded into the air.

Aislinn wasn't sure why, but she felt like something had happened between the two of them. She felt like she didn't want to part with this man yet.

"You are going to return to your life as a tramp?" she inquired, trying to sound playful or at least casual, but only managed to sound disappointed. "Or... whatever kind of life it is you are living."

"Maybe," Tyki answered simply, rubbing the back of his neck.

The woman glanced at the quiet mansion behind them; the sun had just begun to rise, making the windows glisten with its rays of light.

"I suppose this is a permanent goodbye then," she said, unable to face the man who was standing next to her.

Tyki Mikk tilted his head and dared to grin. "At least I managed to pay back my debt, right?"

She sneered. "I don't know about that. Saving a person from an attempted rape isn't that serious compared to saving a little kid from drowning now, is it?"

Tyki blinked his eyes.

"Excuse me?"

Aislinn fell silent. She realized she was being foolish.

"Nothing." Tyki caught only a glimpse of her big dark eyes before she turned away. "Goodbye, lord Tyki."

And with that, she opened the gates and hurried towards the front doors of the manor, before Tyki managed to say or do a thing.

...

He was baffled. Had she actually said that or had he heard wrong?

"She couldn't have been serious," he huffed out loud as he left the gates and walked forward, turned around the corner, kept walking. He had stopped the man from trying to assault her, taken her out to have a pleasant evening, and now... "Saving her from an attempted rape isn't- the same thing-"

Noises were echoing on the empty streets. Tyki realized the noise was coming from him: he had started laughing.

She had spoken with a straight face, no fear in her eyes as if nothing had happened in the first place. Tyki thought about it, chuckling, trying to calm himself down.

Aislinn Riggs was insane, he was sure of that now. And he was going crazy with her.

"You have taken a liking of that young lady, haven't you, Tyki-pet?"

Immediately as he heard that voice, Tyki fell silent and his laughter faded away. He turned around to see a familiar figure standing in the shadows of a small alley; round and plump figure with a top-hat and glasses.

Tyki coughed a couple of times, straightened himself and said sweetly, "Has the good Earl been watching me the entire night? How gracious of him."

"Poor Cyril got so worried about you after you disappeared from the ball," said the Earl with his fatherly voice, the everlasting grin stuck on his goblin-like face. "But we both were certain you had just taken off with some lovely lady."

Tyki laughed, took out one of his cigarettes and lit it up. "He was right. Apparently this time I just took off with a bit more difficult lady."

Difficult was a fine word, mused Tyki. At the moment he couldn't find another word more suitable for Aislinn Riggs.

"I'd love to hear more. Let's discuss it through when we get back to good Cyril's mansion," Earl suggested. He turned slightly and called Tyki to him. "Come. Our carriage awaits around the corner."

...

"So it was as we suspected," Cyril sighed as he, Tyki and Earl were back at the Kamelot Mansion's rose garden. "You decided to leave me alone to the wolves and to be questioned where and with whom you had left."

"I'm sorry if it got problematic for you," Tyki said, his voice mellow. The earl had changed into his human form, and Cyril's fair maid was serving them the tea. Tyki could tell Cyril wanted to hear more details about his nightly trip, but Tyki wasn't going to spill any of it.

"I suppose it only made you seem even better lover material," Cyril sighed. "Every man marvelled your reputation as a ladies' man, and soon the halls were filled with stories – true or false, no one could tell – about your lovely conquests. Of course, every decent woman frowned upon the stories but still seemed to be jealous for the lucky woman who had left the yesterday's ball with you. By the way, you still haven't told me who it was."

Tyki couldn't hold back his smile. It was almost adorable how his looks and polite manners got him out of all kinds of troubles in the aristocratic world.

"I'm afraid my date's identity is none of your business," Tyki said and sipped his Earl Grey tea from the expensive china cup.

"Oh! Then it must have been someone special," Cyril said now with a devious grin. "I know you, my beautiful brother! Had it been just some ordinary girl you would have no trouble telling me everything. Is it that you have found a possible wife candidate?"

"Don't be stupid," Tyki said, this time more stern, "it was nothing, it was just-"

"Master Denzel Kelsley's sister-in-law," Millennium Earl told before Tyki managed to utter another word. "Tyki-pet here had forgotten that he is responsible for her sister's sudden death."

"You mean the young beauty who was escorting the young master last night?" Cyril gasped dramatically. He then looked at Tyki and grimaced, over-doing it on purpose. "You evil, evil man. First you kill a woman – albeit an Exorcist - and then sully her younger sister..."

"I kill more Exorcists than I can remember," Tyki sighed, now irritated. "I had received a task to cause mayhem in this small village many, many years ago. If it makes you feel better, brother, I personally did not kill her. It was an akuma I had ordered there."

"It was a well-known fact in these circles that Mr Denzel Kelsley is an Exorcist," his Noah brother pointed out, smiling gleefully, "and you had no idea you were wooing his sister-in-law. Bravo, I say! Bravo!"

Cyril threw his head back and laughed while clapping his hands together. "I cannot wait for her to find out!"

"Who?" Tyki asked, clenching his jaw in frustration. "I told you that we parted ways already. I am not going to meet Aislinn Riggs anymore."

"That's Tyki-pet for you... Always such a heart-breaker." It was Millennium Earl who spoke now.

"Millennium Earl, I'm serious," the Noah of Pleasure declared firmly. "I won't see her anymore. The fact that I even met her in this ball was a pure coincidence."

"True. But who would we be, if we didn't make use of this coincidence?" Millennium Earl sipped some tea from his cup.

Tyki lifted a brow. "My lord..?"

"Even though you might've not known about it, Denzel Kelsley was and still is an Exorcist. You managed to destroy his young wife and her Innocence years ago, and now poor young Master Kelsley has his eyes on Ms. Aislinn Riggs."

The Earl sipped his tea, and both his minions kept quiet. "Even when you do not know everything, lord Tyki, you can still work for our benefit."

He then put the tea cup away and crossed his hands on his stomach, leaning back in his chair. Tyki frowned upon him. "I'm afraid I'm not following."

"Master Kelsley directs his desires on poor Ms Riggs, while she appears to direct her desires on you."

Tyki's face was unimpressed and completely apathetic. But inside of him, there was a storm of emotions: all of them dark, unstable and dangerous.

"So." He tried to change the subject. "He is an Exorcist."

"Yes. And he used to be quite skilful, too."

"I suspect there is something on your mind, then, my lord?" Cyril inquired. He had sensed the interesting turn of events too, and was dying to be a part of it.

"Yes there is, actually," Millennium Earl admitted. "An akuma was created in Sheelow while Tyki was on his way to Brunsdane with Ms. Riggs and his tramp friends."

Without even fully realizing it, Tyki had straightened up in his chair. "Meaning that there will be chaos waiting for her when she returns home?"

"I wouldn't say chaos," Millennium Earl mused, "but I am certain that young Master Denzel will be ordered there soon. And that's the time I hope Ms Riggs and you will be there as well."

The plan was beginning to open up to Tyki. "Do you wish me to use Ms Riggs as bait?"

"We can assume Master Denzel's going to have some companions with him," said Cyril now, cutting Tyki off. "So we have to be extremely sly when putting up our trap. For that, we need Ms Riggs."

"And it appears that young Ms Riggs," Earl pointed out, "might be more than happy to spend some more time with you, Tyki-pet."

"It will appear fishy."

"It will appear like you had fallen for her feminine charms," Millennium Earl defined, making Tyki fall silent. "Men chase after women for those, so I am sure she will be flattered enough to let you do the same."

"We said goodbye already," Tyki whined.

"Then," Millennium Earl said, with a far lower and stricter tone that was unusual to him, "Your next meeting will be a coincidence again. Fair enough?"

Tyki sighed, defeated like a young boy in front of his father.

"Fine."

"Excellent!" the Earl rejoiced and clapped his gloved hands together. "The next step is a crucial one and then it's all child's play from there."

Tyki nodded slightly.

"What will you have me do, sir?" Noah of Pleasure questioned his Master.

...

"Aislinn, why don't you let me explain?"

"Even if I let you explain what you did – or tried to do last night – I would still be leaving. I have to get back to Sheelow."

Aislinn was packing her bag. She had changed into her grey dress and become bland and nothing special. She remembered how Tyki had described her as a peacock that hid its true feathers. Her cheeks turned slightly pink.

Denzel was looking as handsome as ever, but his chocolate brown eyes were shadowed with guilt.

"I was drunk."

"That's a terrible excuse."

"Aislinn... I don't want you to replace your sister," Denzel said, and this time sounded like his normal self. "I was out of my mind, tired and drunk. I didn't mean any of what I said. Can you please forgive me?"

The young woman looked at the slightly older man, who had sat down on a small arm-chair to watch her pack. She saw him as well as ever, but something had inevitably changed between the two of them. Knowing this, she sighed, and turned away.

"I forgive you," she stated, "But you have to return to your duties as an Exorcist, Denzel. My sister is dead. Let her go. That's what Bryanna would have wanted."

The man's shoulders sank. His voice trembling, he said, "I know."

"I am sorry for making you and your family worry last night," Aislinn added. "But I'm going to book a room from a hotel near the railway station. I will return to Sheelow tomorrow."

It was quiet for a moment before either one of them said a thing.

"Very well," Denzel finally agreed softly. He stood up and looked like he had calmed down a bit. "May I accompany you there? To make sure you get there safely."

Aislinn couldn't stop herself before she had already sneered, "That sounds funny, coming from your mouth."

The man clenched his jaw, and Aislinn hurried to say more clearly:

"I think it would be better if I went alone. But thank you."

He nodded a couple of times but didn't dare to face her directly. "I'll go order them to prepare a carriage for you."

Before Denzel stepped out of the room, he stopped and turned to her. He opened his mouth, as if to say something more, but then moved out quietly, like a scared mouse.

He could apologize all he wants, thought Aislinn. But the image of the kind and reliable brother-in-law, the man both Aislinn and Bryanna had trusted, had now disappeared.

...

Tyki was standing in the shadows of a shabby little alley, just across the street and with a clear view to a hotel called Grand Hotel Delia Star.

He had been there for a while already, and seen how the horse carriage had brought Aislinn Riggs in front of the great, red-tiled hotel. He was in his shabby hobo form, his white form, although now it felt like it didn't really matter in which form he spend his time.

His thoughts were on Aislinn and only Aislinn.

He recognized his dark side's gleefulness: that he could be this tightly attached to a woman whose sister he had had murdered. It was sick yet somehow terribly entertaining.

And he also recognized his gentler human side, which seemed to have registered everything about Aislinn Riggs deep into the depths of his soul; her confident and stern attitude; her low and strict voice; the scent of her brown hair; the look of her dark blue eyes; the pink on her cheeks, the creamy skin and that wonderful pair of round, firm—

Tyki closed his eyes tightly and stopped himself from going too far.

He tried to bring back the image of that Aislinn he had first seen and thought nothing of: the bland and boring one. But the more he tried to turn her dull, almost unattractive, the better he remembered how she had pressed herself against Tyki in that night-time café, how her warmth had flown to his body and likewise.

Use her. Use. Her. He kept repeating Millennium Earl's words to himself like a mysterious chant. Yes. It was all that simple. He would use her, have her to himself and then he could finally forget all about her. One could fight lust only so long. And why even fight? It was a lovely feeling, mutual or not. And he was the Noah of Pleasure.

He turned around the corner, and when he stepped in to the daylight, there stood Lord Tyki, in his wonderful black tuxedo and top hat. He walked across the street and through the hotel doors like he owned the world. There was a familiar man behind the counter, who looked at him with a wide smile.

"Lord Tyki! How wonderful to see you with us again! How can I help you?"

"I would like to deliver a message to a fair lady who stays in this hotel, Albert. I understand she signed in today: Ms. Aislinn Riggs."

"Ah yes, I remember her. Peculiar name, I'd say," Albert mused. "What kind of a message should I deliver to her?"

Tyki took a piece of paper and an ink pen from the counter, and wrote a few words on it. Then he folded the paper and gave it to Albert. "I'll be waiting here while you deliver this."

Albert looked confused, but left his place and hurried to the stairs.

Tyki sat down in the lobby and lit up a new cigarette. He would be able to do this. She would be a new conquest, and he would use all his tricks to succeed. If she asked why he was here, he wouldn't even have to lie to her.

And in a matter of minutes, when Aislinn Riggs hurried down the stairs – she was now wearing a rather lovely sapphire blue dress – Tyki stood up and smiled at her.

"I hope you will excuse me," he said with an apologetic smile, "I'm afraid I can't let you go just yet."


	11. Part 10

Aislinn stared at the man at the end of the stairs. Her stomach seemed to turn upside down – and yet she felt uncontrollably happy. She could have flown down the rest of the stairs and embrace the man like a silly little child; it took all her strength to simply smile as she reached Tyki.

"What a pleasant surprise this is," she said with a gentle smile. "You were lucky to find me. I am leaving to Sheelow tomorrow morning."

"I'd figure you would be here; it's the closest hotel to the railway station."

Tyki went through his options inside his head. He couldn't just tell her to stay longer; she obviously missed her family, especially after the incident with Denzel, and no matter how Tyki would plead and beg – which would only sound and look ridiculous – Aislinn would definitely turn him down and leave tomorrow as early as possible.

He could also kill the girl. Take her out of sight and then do it. She would be left bleeding on the pavement and ditched somewhere like garbage, and then there would be no one to worry about anymore. No more Aislinn Riggs. No more of this lunacy...

But Tyki knew he couldn't be that brutal with her.

Not now. Not yet.

"I was wondering if you would like to have lunch with me today," he inquired, his voice polite without being too mellow, as if he wouldn't be disappointed should she refuse this generous offer.

Aislinn pouted her lips, acting thoughtful, when there was actually nothing she wanted more at that moment.

"Sure. Sounds wonderful. Let me just get my hat and we can go."

Tyki nodded calmly as she hurried up the stair, and he smiled lightly as she almost tripped on her own feet. She was back in no time, wearing her simple yet comely straw-hat.

Tyki had already put on his top-hat, and when he escorted the smiling Aislinn outside, Albert the hotel manager looked after them with a mild smile.

"This is a second time we meet after already saying good-bye," Aislinn reminded Tyki as they crossed a charming market-place and then made way to the city park and its lovely restaurants and cafés. "I am getting the feeling that you would rather never say good-bye to me ever again."

Her notion was pronounced with a hint of teasing laughter, but Tyki was in his element now and ready to counter-attack.

"That's an awful thing to say," he said with a small sigh. "I thought we had shared something when we danced in that dim night café last night."

Aislinn glanced at him. Her smile was gone, and there was a hint of pink on her cheeks. "Shared what, Tyki?"

"A connection." There was a word that every woman loved to hear from a man.

However, Tyki understood that this time he didn't use that word as light-heartedly as before; he actually believed it too, even if he refused to see anything strange about that. Aislinn Riggs was still a mystery to him, almost like an unrecognised force of nature he wanted to experience time and time again.

She was looking down, unable to face him.

"Yes," she said softly as they passed an old birch with heavily weeping branches. "I felt it too. But I thought that you were scared of..." She paused and stopped walking, and Tyki followed her example.

"Scared of what?"

"...Scared of the connection. That's how I felt."

She lifted her eyes at him. The big birch casted its shadow over them and the leaves were rustling in the soft breeze. When a large and plump cloud casted itself across the sky, concealing the sun for a moment, the two of them seemed to have been wrapped in shadows.

And within his heart, Tyki felt the greatest shadow of all.

He took a step closer, and in his golden gaze Aislinn saw something that made her heart flutter. She unintentionally took a step backward, her back meeting the rough bark of the birch. She glanced up and saw Tyki there. They were almost as close to each other as back at that night café.

"Perhaps," the handsome Earl admitted without any sign of smile. "Perhaps that's true. So do excuse me if I seem a bit out of place. I'm not used to being scared."

Aislinn sneered, but she felt completely out of breath. "Quit joking around."

He leaned closer and the woman inhaled sharply.

"Would you be anyone else..." Tyki frowned at the words that had escaped his lips. As if talking to himself, he finished the sentence, "I'd do nothing else but joke around."

He was uncertain; was he still playing or speaking from him heart? The familiar battle between his two sides was erupting again, but this time it was slightly different. Slightly more malicious.

Tyki had cornered Aislinn against the tree bark, and when he pressed his body against hers, claiming her personal space as his own and so making it possible for her to escape, he felt hunger impossible to describe.

Her heart was racing and her lips were parted just enough to let her breath escape. The dark worlds of those eyes seemed to be grasping something inside Tyki, and it caused him unknown pain. He saw and understood the same thing that had crossed his mind a couple of times before.

He was going crazy with her, even crazier than before.

"Mr Travelling Tramp," Aislinn said with small voice, calling Tyki back to reality from his thoughts. She smiled a little and didn't seem as alert as before. "What is going on in that head of yours?"

Tyki narrowed his eyes, and his fingers brushed the woman's pale cheekbone lightly. His other arm gripped her shoulder and pulled her closer. If she wanted to know what was going on in his mind so badly, so be it. He would show her.

In a second he had closed the free space between them and met her warm lips with his. Aislinn's entire body jerked in shock and anticipation, as she was kissed like no other man had ever kissed her before: Tyki's hot mouth ravished that of hers and she immediately came to realise every thought in that man's mind. She felt his need, his desire flow into her effortlessly, and she wasn't even one bit surprised when she responded to his actions with great satisfaction.

The bark of the birch behind her scratched her neck, and her straw-hat fell somewhere on the ground. It was like the cloud above had cloaked them in dark from the cruel sunshine, and the hanging branches and its thousands of leaves hid Aislinn and Tyki from the rest of the world. Aislinn hoped that the wind would stop for a moment and move push the cloud forward. She didn't want to be revealed by the warm rays of sunlight, and hopelessly she gripped Tyki's coat and held him close.

No one had ever warned her how easily the ground could shake under her, or how easily the reason could leave her head and leave only the basic animal instincts.

Tyki tasted her tongue and lips and became intoxicated by her scent. He pulled her under the weeping branches, and they were now completely out of sight from the people walking down the streets and the river bend. The air was cooler there, in their little leaf-hut. Tyki's mouth left Aislinn's lips and travelled to her neck and the curve of her throat, planting kisses here and there.

But then, just as suddenly as he had begun, he pulled himself away from her, still keeping her in his arms. They were both gasping for air for a moment, and their eye contact didn't falter even for a second.

Tyki was the first to recover; he grinned down at Aislinn almost smugly, and Aislinn looked away and let go of his jacket.

"I apologize," Aislinn hurried to say and wiped a lock of hair behind her ear. "That was... that was inappropriate."

"Was it?" Tyki asked innocently, and Aislinn hated how even and normal he sounded compared to her own shivering voice. "Even if it was, did it feel bad?"

"No proper lady would-"

"I have no interest in proper ladies, whoever they are," Tyki pointed out, and there was something rough and exciting in his expression that made Aislinn hold her breath. "I want to be inappropriate with you and only you."

"Don't..." She tried to deny everything she had just felt and keep up that cool facade of hers. But she still felt her lips burning, and she yearned for him to touch her again. "Don't mistake me... for... for some prostitute!"

"That is not the case." Earl Tyki Mikk was still smiling down at her. "Aislinn... You are not a so-called 'proper lady'; you proved that back in the ball. You are something more than that, and time and time again you steal my attention." He lowered his voice, and then spoke as if asking himself, "Even I don't know how you do it."

Aislinn fell silent. She moved back to the street from the birch; the sun had appeared again and was shining upon the city. Tyki had appeared beside Aislinn before she even noticed it.

"That was a nice starter," he said cheerfully, and as Aislinn directed her pouting face to him, Tyki grinned boyishly. "How about we find a place to have that lunch now?"

"What do you think, Millennium Earl?" Cyril inquired while checking his reflection from a mirror set on the wall of his salon. "Will Tyki handle it? I must say I am quite excited for him, she may become his 'special someone', like my dear Tricia is to me!"

"I would hate should that happen," the Earl said, his back facing Cyril as he was glancing out the window. It looked like a storm was on its way. "Tyki is different from you, he has always wanted to keep his human side intact... That is why he has those three with himself."

"The hobos you mean?"

"Yes... So I do not know what it is about this Riggs girl that attracts him so much. Tyki can be a quite the charmer when he wishes to, but so far he has never paid much attention on the ladies."

Cyril hummed and smiled at his face in the mirror.

"You weren't there, dear Earl." He took a rose from a vase under the mirror and looked at it. "I, a married man, was dazzled by her as well."

"That's not really surprising." Millennium Earl turned away from the window and eyed Cyril and the rose. "But if Tyki is really losing himself, we have to put the plan in motion soon. I have kept an eye on Denzel Kelsley and we will move soon."

"Are you two talking about me?"

Tyki had appeared on the doorway. Both Cyril and Earl turned to him. "Ah. You are back already."

"Are you really doubting me that badly?" The man swooned in, grinning widely. "It's a good thing I popped by before going back."

"You are going back?"

"Of course," the Noah of Pleasure declared. "If we are playing this game, we should play it well, right? I'll take everything I can get out of Aislinn Riggs so I won't regret when this is all over."

Cyril chuckled. "You are heartless."

"I put my plan in motion today and I am doing just as you suggested, dear Earl." Tyki humbly bowed to his Master. "I will use her. And I will have fun doing so."

"Tyki," Millennium Earl said fatherly, "keep in mind that that woman is a crucial part of our plan. She will return to Sheelow only to see how it gets destroyed."

Not a muscle moved on Tyki's face. "What are you taking me as? I enjoy keeping her company. And if there is something else I can do..."

"Where are you taking her tonight, then?"

Tyki smiled and took the flower from Cyril's hand. "Well. I planned keeping her company the entire night.


	12. Part 11

Aislinn fell on the bed of her hotel room and couldn't tame down the smile of pure satisfaction on her face. She kept repeating the scenes of today in her head time and time again, heard Earl Tyki Mikk's voice in her head as clearly as if he had lain there right beside her, on that bed...

The thought of such thing made the woman blush and giggle. She was acting like a harlot. No, she realized, remembering how her sister had looked with Denzel: Aislinn was acting like a woman in love.

Her head was swooning; was it really so? Was she in love with this mysterious man, this tramp who claimed to be a rich aristocrat as well, and who so easily made her heart skip a beat or two and her knees go weak?

Aislinn couldn't stop smiling. She could feel his silky black curls in her hands as she had touched them when they had shared those kisses under the hanging birch.

She could still taste his lips and smell his cologne in her nostrils... And feel his heavy, almost scary weight against her body's feminine curves.

If only Bryanna had been still alive... Could she have talked to her about this? Sister, sister, I am in love. In love? Yes, in love.

Is he handsome? The looks he casts on me take my breath away... and so do his kisses...

She giggled to herself and rolled on the bed.

Then suddenly she heard a train whistle: it was coming from the railway station next to the hotel, and suddenly she remembered. She was supposed to return to Sheelow next morning!

Her thoughts ran wild. She hadn't purchased a ticket yet, so it would be all right. But what about her family? Her younger siblings, her mother and father? Surely they missed her. She missed them.

She stood up and walked around in her room, going through her clothes, her dresses. If she saw Tyki tonight, as they had promised to each other, would she be able to leave so soon? In her heart, she knew she could not. Aislinn understood that the man she had bid farewell so many times already, was actually someone she didn't want to leave at all.

There was a heavy knock on the door and she got startled by it. "Just a moment!" she cried out, checked her image from the mirror and moved a few locks behind her ears, before hurrying to open the door. Who she saw caught her completely off-guard.

"Evan?"

The grim and frowning face of her older brother loomed above her, like a judging face of a church icon. "Hello, Aislinn. Mind if I come in?" he inquired with an even, cool tone. Without a word Aislinn let her brother pass, and watched him take off his jacket and sit down on one of the arm-chairs. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the very same thing from you," he said sternly, and immediately Aislinn understood why Evan had appeared.

"I know everyone must be worried sick," she said humbly.

"Actually, I didn't come to this city to scold you for being away for too long. I came to meet Denzel."

Now she was puzzled. "You..? Meet Denzel? I didn't even know you were in good terms with him."

Evan nodded a couple of times and wiped back his auburn hair. He was a man with handsome features, but his eyes were tired and dark. "We've been in contact... Ever since Bree died."

Aislinn frowned upon him. "How come you haven't said anything? You know how badly I wanted to get in contact with him-"

"I didn't think it would be safe for you!" he said and stood up to step to the window.

Standing there, his eyes directed outside, he sighed, "...Linn. I know about Denzel and Bryanna. I've known about the Order and the Exorcists as well, for quite some time now."

Aislinn stood there, not believing her own ears. "What?"

"Ever since Bryanna died... I couldn't live with the vague story of her death. I searched for Denzel and found him. And he told me everything." Evan gazed up at Aislinn, his expression hard. "Just like he told me that you knew everything. You have always known about Bryanna's special gift, and what killed our sister."

Aislinn sat down, quietly, and lowered her eyes. She noticed her hands were shaking. "Yes."

Evan sighed.

"Obviously, I haven't told our parents. They mustn't know. As for I... I have been a member of the Order for five years now."

"You?" Aislinn gasped in surprise. "Why haven't you said anything?"

"I can't say I have been a very active member, having my post as the priest in Sheelow, but I have been their informant and eyes, in case anything fishy would happen in our hometown."

Aislinn looked up. "So... why have you come to see Denzel? Evan, what is going on?"

Her brother knitted his dark brows together, his sharp jaw clenched. "The Akuma... the same mindless monsters who killed our sister... They are now in Sheelow."

"No!" gasped Aislinn and stood up in shock. "How? Why?"

"Apparently the storm that roamed about for a few days was not an accident. People were killed... and from those, the monsters were born. It's got out of hand and destroying our village from within... We have tried to evacuate but... It's almost like these monsters tried to take the entire village down with them."

"Why? Why are they-"

"Why did they kill our sister?" Evan's voice was even and cold again. "There is no reason. They take down humans because they do not know of anything else. One cannot reason with monsters."

"And mother and father? Aileen, Connor and Brew? Are they safe?"

Evan nodded. "They are safe, for now at least. Denzel will lead a group of Exorcists there tomorrow morning, and I will accompany them. The reason why I came to meet you first, was-"

"Don't you dare say it..."

"Aislinn. You have to stay here. You are safe here."

"Safe? My entire family is on a battlefield with monsters, and you ask me to stay here?"

"Lower your tone, for God's sake!" Evan ordered, and they both fell silent for moment, just glaring at each other.

They had never been that close, but they still loved each other like siblings do. As two different people, they couldn't have been more different, though.

"I did not come here to ask you to stay. That was an order as your older brother." Evan stepped to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. She met his gaze with tears in her eyes. "I have already lost one sister to these demons from Hell. Do not worry over mother and father, not over our younger sister and brothers. I will make sure that they will survive this."

"Evan, I'm scared..."

"I understand that," he said, and now his voice was cracked with a hint of gentleness. He gave her sister a tight hug and a kiss on the forehead. "You have friends here, don't you?"

A flash of Tyki appeared in Aislinn's mind. She nodded and wiped her tears. "Yes..."

"When this is over, I will come to get you home. I promise."

She nodded and tried to smile. After giving a kiss to his brother's lips, Aislinn escorted Evan to the lobby. "Be safe."

Evan put on his black hat and nodded. "You too." And with that, he was off.

"Your brother came here? From Sheelow?"

Aislinn nodded and managed to smile. "He was in a hurry. Priestly matters, he said. But he came to see if I was all right."

Tyki raised his brow. "That was nice of him. Everything is okay with your family, then?"

"Yes," she said quickly and then laughed a little as he looked at her oddly. "Although... They are still gathering up the pieces after those awful storms."

They were dining in a fine restaurant of French cuisine, residing right beside the river bend in the posh part of the city. There were tall white candles lit-up on the tables, and there were blooming flowers in great vases, decorating every corner of the restaurant.

Aislinn had had difficulties choosing anything good to wear, and had decided on a dress of dark red taffeta with black laces. It wasn't as glamorous as it should have been, but it seemed to be enough for Tyki, at least.

"You seem shocked, somehow," Tyki said, his golden eyes eyeing the woman's face. "Are you sure you are all right?"

Aislinn nodded to calm him down. "I want to enjoy this evening with you, Tyki. I'm happy you are here with me."

"I feel the same way," he admitted, taking a sip of red wine from his glass. "And I think this place has wines bit more different compared to the one in that night cafe."

"Don't remind me of that, please. I get stomach ache just thinking about it," Aislinn laughed good-heartedly, making Tyki smile as well.

"I am almost certain they served us dish-water back there," he noted, and she laughed some more.

"That's terrible!"

They laughed together and Aislinn forgot her sullen mood for a while. Tyki had changed her; she didn't remember when she had had this much fun back in Sheelow. The four hobos had appeared on the Riggs' door step had had a great impact on her life.

And now, she was in love. She was falling in love with this mysterious Earl. Did he feel the same way, about her?

As Aislinn was pondering this, Tyki was enjoying his time drinking good wine and sharing his table with the woman who had brought so much excitement to his quite dull Noah life. He was able to laugh with her like with he laughed with Clark, Eaze and Momo; but his friends weren't any eye-candy to him compared to Aislinn in her red dress, showing off her chest and shoulders.

"Can I ask: why do you tie your hair up like a spinster?" Tyki suddenly asked after they had finished the starters.

Aislinn bat her eyes, light pink rising on her cheeks, but she smiled nevertheless.

"What makes you ask such a question?"

Tyki smirked a little and spoke while picturing the memory in his head.

"When I saw you... or more like surprised you, back in your family's bathroom... You had your hair cascading down your shoulders. To be frank, you had combed it aside on your other shoulder."

The pink turned deeper shade of red, but the woman kept her eyes on him. "And?"

"Just like now, back then you looked like a wonderful porcelain doll with your creamy skin, flushed cheeks and beautiful hair," Tyki said gently. "It was the first time I saw your collected expression fail-"

"Naturally – a hobo was peeking on me!"

"True, and I suppose that is our beginning. That bathroom accident." He glanced at the woman and smiled mischievously. "It is rather comic, isn't it?"

To him it was mostly tragicomic, though.

"A little," she chuckled. "But I suppose you are right in more than one way. You say you saw my cool demeanour disappear then; and I say I saw the first glimpse of your true self back then, too."

This was all like a bad play: a woman meets a man, a man meets a woman. They find a strange connection; and it turns out that the man, the murderer, was the cause of the death of the woman's beloved sister. And yet here they were; talking, eating together. They had even shared a passionate moment.

And for what?

So he could crush it all?

Tyki raised his brows, and he had to raise a hand to cover up his amused grin. "You don't say."

"Yes. I saw behind your thick-framed glasses and the mess of hair. I see you've taken me for granted. Don't. I see more than you think."

The man openly showed his smile now. "I've come to realize that."

"It was no different in that bathroom, nor in the ball or that night cafe, or under that birch today." She smiled, and it was pleasure that heated up her cheeks this time. "From the first moment, we have enjoyed each other's company. We can stir emotions in each other that we didn't even know to have existed before. I know you must have met many women before me; beautiful women, women of wealth and elegance, but..."

"None of them," said Tyki, ending her sentence, "has affected me the way you have. Is this what you wished to say?"

"Or at least most of them haven't," Aislinn said, feeling suddenly very self-conscious.

She had deliberately crossed the line. They were not two friends having a dinner with each other in beautiful surroundings anymore. They now had to face the truth; that they were something more, and they both felt it, knew it in their hearts.

Tyki saw how uneasy yet at the same time impatient Aislinn was; she had opened up to him and was now vulnerable and on his mercy.

Honestly; he didn't want to lie about this to her. He could turn her down kindly, which would be the best option for her, once he thought about it. There was no future for them, unless he wrapped her in the same kind of web of lies and mischief as Cyril had done with Tricia.

But Tyki saw no reason in that, and for a moment, he had to gather his thoughts and remember what he meant to do and what he had done already.

Would she sit there, saying these things if she knew the truth about him?

Darling, I killed your Exorcist-sister. I order around Akuma who kill people all the time, I am part of the bad guys, and I am loving it. Yet I love this too, these moments with you, you understand that, right?

What nonsense. He had to stick with the original plan.

"You are correct," Tyki said with a smile, the pair of gold eyes meeting the pair of nearly black ones. "How could you not be? There is no way I could sit here and claim that the kiss we shared today was one-sided."

"Or that I was dancing alone in the ball and in that night cafe..."

"Or that I wasn't charmed by you already in Sheelow." Tyki shut his mouth, but his expression was soft.

That had gone a tad bit too far and he knew it. At some point, she would find out the truth. Yet he couldn't stop and push her away, not now, not just yet.

He took in a deep breath and went through his pockets for his cigarettes. He felt like he needed a smoke, and almost sounding irritated, he groaned, "You have made me crazy, you know."

Aislinn stifled a laugh at that. "Ah. By my looks or my wonderful nature?"

"It's trivial," Tyki sneered, leaning to his arm. But then he declared almost smugly, "Both. And I want all of it. All of you."

That was no lie. She didn't know it yet, but she would come to hate him for saying something like that.

"Are you going to steal another kiss from me?" Aislinn inquired sweetly, and she realized how much fun it actually was to flirt; to act like a so-called harlot.

The intense look in Tyki's eyes and the confident grin that spread on his lips showed her that he was enjoying their little talk too.

"I would prefer to receive another kiss from you, rather than steal one. But," he added deviously, "If you are not up to it, I would be happy to try and persuade you."

Aislinn smiled. "I think I like you crazy."

So you say now.

"Ah, we've done it. I don't think I have to eat another bite in my entire life anymore."

"I bet in 30 minutes, you are hungry again."

"You are taking me as some kind of a glutton?"

"Men tend to eat a lot, that's all I'm saying."

"That's because they use up all their energy doing things..."

Giggling.

"What kind of things?"

Tyki pulled Aislinn to her, and in the light of a lamppost he bent down to kiss the woman, who gladly responded. They were both smiling and laughing from the red wine they had drunk, and their blood seemed to flow hotter in their veins as they embraced each other in the drizzle.

Aislinn rested her head against Tyki's chest and closed her eyes for a second. "Thank you."

"What reason do you have to thank me..." Tyki sniggered but watched the drowsy woman with a warm expression.

She opened her eyes slowly, and then lifted her face to look at him. For a moment they stood in silence, but as Tyki was just about to kiss her again a carriage pulled next to them, and the door opened.

Cyril's enthusiastic face grinned at them. "It's a wonderful evening, isn't it?"

Tyki turned to his fellow Noah, still holding Aislinn. "What are you doing here?"

"I wondered that you two might need a ride home." Cyril directed his eyes at Aislinn, who was staring back, curiously. "It'll soon start raining harder, and you two don't seem to have an umbrella."

"I think we will manage," Tyki said grimly. What was Cyril doing? Was this all because of his sick fascination towards women?

"You must be Ms Aislinn Riggs," Cyril inquired, turning his full attention on the woman. He stepped out of the carriage and tipped his hat to her puzzled expression. "What a pleasure to finally meet you. I don't think we were introduced back in the Marquis' ball; my name is Cyril Kamelot, I am Tyki's brother."

Aislinn's eyes widened in surprise, and she turned to Tyki. "You never mentioned that you had a brother."

"I tend to keep it a secret," Tyki sighed through clenched teeth. He was starting to have a headache.

"I apologize for Tyki, Ms. Riggs. The truth is, he doesn't wish to show any of his lady friends to me," Cyril explained cheerfully and winked at Aislinn. "He tends to be a bit possessive."

"What are you talking about..." Tyki moaned.

"Yes, he is a bit peculiar, isn't he," Aislinn laughed now, and was getting into the carriage before Tyki managed to stop her. "Come on, Tyki; it truly looks like it'll storm soon and I would rather stay dry."

Tyki glared at Cyril, who was smiling with satisfaction, over Aislinn's shoulder, but he got into the carriage without further objections.


	13. Part 12

AUTHOR'S WORDS: Hello everyone, it's been a while and I apologize for that. Some of you have been kind enough to message me, asking if I will continue writing this fic. I've had many bad experiences with fics that never finish, so do not worry, I'm not going to let that happen here. I'll finish this fic just like I had planned.

Now, to the newest part!

"Ah, as I suspected!" Cyril exclaimed as the carriage drove forward. He was glancing out of the window and shaking his head. "It's raining dogs and cats. It was lucky I saw you and picked you up, otherwise you'd be as soaked as rats by now."

Aislinn laughed good-heartedly. Poor, innocent woman. "We're both in debt to you, lord Cyril."

Tyki was glaring his fellow Noah in the dim light of the carriage. He was angry that Cyril had appeared out of nowhere without warning him first, and the idea that Cyril and Millennium Earl had possibly planned something alone without consulting Tyki, was annoying him too.

"So, where do you stay, Miss Aislinn?" Cyril inquired.

"Grand Hotel Delia Star," the young woman answered with a smile.

"Driver, to Grand Hotel Delia Star, near the railway station!"

Just a while ago Tyki had been intoxicated from wine and Aislinn's company, yet now his mind was as clear as a day. He glanced at Aislinn from the corner of his eye; saw her looking marvellous in her red dress, dark jacket and hat and completely unaware how dangerous the man in the carriage was.

Tyki held back a bitter smirk when he realized what he'd just thought. Was he seriously turning blind to his own horrifying self?

Aislinn winded her arms around herself and shivered a little. "Winter's coming. The air's getting chilly."

"Oh my dear child, are you feeling cold?" Cyril said, his voice filled with genuine worry. "Please, allow me the pleasure of offering you a nightcap at my mansion!"

"Maybe some other time, dear lord," Aislinn said with a friendly smile, her cheeks still flushed by the wine. "I'm very tired, and I'd rather get to my bed in the hotel."

Cyril nodded, answering that smile with his own. "Of course. Then perhaps a dinner tomorrow? With my brother as your escort, of course."

Aislinn narrowed her eyes as she pondered his words.

"I was to return to Sheelow tomorrow morning, but," she smiled at Tyki's direction, "my plans have changed."

Tyki smiled back at her. "And I'm happy for that."

He truly was.

Cyril was smiling at the two of them. Despite his overly done friendliness, Tyki sensed the ill thoughts behind that wide smile.

"Then tomorrow's a date. I'll tell my dear wife that we will have to set two extra plates on the table. Shall we say around 6 pm?"

"That'd be lovely."

"I'll send a carriage to pick you up, my fair lady," the Noah said, looking at Aislinn over his glasses.

"I hope you two enjoyed your meal? I suppose it was a bit rude of me to intrude, you seemed to be having fun together."

Aislinn's face turned slightly redder in the dim light and her smile faltered for a moment out of embarrassment, before managing to say, while looking at Tyki, "Of course. Your brother is a true gentleman, after all."

For a few seconds, Tyki's eyes met those of Cyril's and the corner of the older man's mouth twitched slightly; out of amusement.

"And you, my dear, are perhaps one of the fairest women that exist on this earth," Cyril declared with a small bow of his head. "I thank you for sparing your time for my brother."

"Dear sir, you are being too modest," Aislinn chuckled.

Just then, the carriage hauled into a stop, catching them all off-guard.

"We are there already?" Aislinn inquired, not even trying to cover the disappointment in her voice, which made Cyril laugh.

"All good things must come to an end at some point, don't they? Fortunately, we will meet again tomorrow. The carriage will be here for you at 5 pm."

The driver hurried to open a door for them, and Cyril managed to get up and block Tyki so he was the first to help Aislinn outside.

"Sweet dreams, Miss Aislinn."

The woman smiled, a bit puzzled how Cyril had been the one helping her. "Thank you."

She looked over Cyril's shoulder to Tyki, her eyes filling with emotion that caused something unsettling within the Noah's heart.

"Thank you for a lovely evening," she sighed.

Tyki smiled back at her. "I had wonderful time as well. Can't wait for tomorrow."

Her smile only widened before a gust of wind rustled her hemlines and tore a few strands free from the tight bun, making her gasp in surprise. She hurried towards the doors of the hotel lobby, glancing over her shoulder once, before opening the door and getting inside.

Cyril hurried back inside the carriage and closed the door. He smiled at his Noah brother's sullen expression, as he sat back down on his seat. "Now, then, dear brother," he said with a sinister smile. "Tomorrow will be a big day."

The carriage startled as it started moving again.

"Why did you come?" Tyki growled, leaning to his hand and glaring the darkness outside.

"I know you must have been enjoying yourself," Cyril sniggered, "but we have to stick with our plan. And tomorrow, we'll put our plan in motion."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Tyki snapped at him, finally turning his eyes and full attention at Cyril. "I thought we had discussed this through. Am I not supposed to mislead her?"

"Oh yes," Cyril laughed. "And you planned to entertain her the entire night. How very cheeky of you. How very confident. You sure she would have let you enter her little chamber today?"

"Cut it out-"

"She wouldn't have. After meeting with her face to face, I'm sure she would have slapped you across the face had you even suggested something like that." Cyril Kamelot sighed. "You just wanted to brag about how easily you can charm any woman you meet."

"She's not just any woman."

Silence fell upon them as Cyril looked up at him. Tyki grimaced and turned his head, terrified what he had just said out loud. He cursed himself and the power that had made him say such a thing.

"Tyki," his Noah brother said, this time without a smile, without a hint of glee on his face, "you are a smart man, so I know you understand what is going to happen."

"I know, I know," Tyki grunted, biting his tooth, annoyed. It took a moment before he relaxed himself, and breathed out. Then, with velvet-smooth and steady voice, he stated:

"She will die."

Cyril laughed. "Ah, yes, my dear beautiful brother," he sneered, leaning back in his seat, "yes, she will be dead. But what of it? Death isn't actually that horrible, is it? Only how it happens. We Noahs, we can torture and kill humans and Exorcists in the cruelest manner... You know that to be true. You've killed. And I know you've had fun releasing that side you call your dark side.

"Personally? I don't understand your need to divide your love for human relationships and your love for... well. Being a Noah."

"I don't need you to understand me," Tyki murmured grumpily.

"That was beside the point," his brother hurried to say, "that was not what I was going after. As I said, death itself isn't actually horrible. You said she will die, and she probably will. However..."

Tyki raised his brow and quickly glanced at Cyril. "However?"

"How will she die?"

The Noah of Pleasure rolled his eyes. "How should I know? I'm not a fortune teller. There are many ways to end a human life."

"That's not what I meant." The smug smile returned to Cyril's face. "You said she will die, and you're right. But you must remember that before that, something else happens. In the end, she will find out who and what you are, and what you have done. That you killed her beloved sister, and that you don't even care if you take a human life."

Tyki kept gazing at him, his expression indifferent. "And?"

"She won't be yours anymore. When she looks at you, instead of blushing face and a smile, you, my dear brother, will see pure disgust and hatred. And when that happens, when the truth comes out and she finally sees your true colours, will it not be easy to end her life? Because once she dies, it'll be a relief for both of you. She will be free of her anger and you will be free of your temptation." He snorted. "Unless, of course..."

"What?"

"You will treat her like I treat my dear Tricia. Hm? What do you think, Tyki? Would you be ready to become a married man?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Tyki scoffed, raising his tone of voice. He then sank back in his seat and moaned, rubbing his temples. "This entire situation makes my head ache! I already have a life as a human, I have human friends and I do boring tasks as a human until I am called to my duties as a Noah!"

He sighed, gently rubbing his temples with his long slender fingers.

"My white, human side, and my pitch-black, evil side of me should never meet. And now... Now I must use them both, make them act together, have them both interfere my life at the same time, all because of that woman..."

He glared at Cyril and wrinkled his nose at him. "Do you know how difficult it has become?"

"'Has become'?" Cyril's expression had become gleeful again as he was leaning to his arm, watching Tyki, who was getting even more and more irritated with himself and his foolish thoughts. "What is this? I can see that woman is quite exquisite, but to have you so infatuated with her..."

"Crazy, call me 'crazy', please; that at least makes some sense to me," Tyki groaned.

"Are you sure that it's your head aching, and not your heart?" Cyril laughed. "Brother, you can be so amusing!"

Tyki turned his head, saw the rain beating up against the carriage's windows and heard the wheels squeak when they drove over small rocks and ponds the heavy rain had drilled to the muddy soil of the roads.

Tyki knew he would never be able to do the same as Cyril: to have a mansion, servants and a wife, to have a false life so grand and luxurious. It was a whole different case with Momo, Clark and Eaze, they made no demands nor took his time, and they hardly ever asked any questions. He also knew that Aislinn wasn't as sickly and naive as Tricia; she would find out at some point, or at last began to suspect that something was wrong. Tyki preferred things to stay clear and simple, so having a wife and a steady life as a nobleman with duties were out of the question.

Aislinn Riggs was out of the question, as he had always known.

With a deep sigh, he closed his eyes and let the Noah side get the best of him. When he faced Cyril again, his skin had turned grey and eyes golden colour – and the stigmata markings had appeared to his forehead like a crown of scars around his head.

"Do you think more clearly in that form?" Cyril inquired gently. Tyki sneered, his expression a bit softened.

"For some reason..." Tyki almost whispered, his breath slightly blurring the cold glass, "Sometimes I do feel like that, yes. I feel that my desires change with my attire, and even if they don't, it is easier to remember what I have done, what these Noah hands of mine have done. I called upon a monster that killed Bryanna Riggs. I felt no remorse, like I've never felt remorse when I have sent Akuma to slay humans and abuse their foolish desires. The only regret I feel is the selfish kind."

Cyril raised his brow, confused.

"I am angry that Bryanna Riggs' sister has almost effortlessly found a way to mess with my head, so that it now affects how I think and feel, and hinders me from doing something I've done so many times. I keep thinking that it would have been better had I never met her... and yet I can't say that to be whole truth of what I feel." He sighed, as if in pain. "Tell me, Cyril... Why can't I just leave Aislinn? Why can't I just kill her myself or order an Akuma to destroy the hotel she stays in, so she'd be crushed by tons of tiles while asleep?"

Cyril sniggered, shaking his head like he'd not believe his ears. "Is it so hard to believe that you might actually care for that young woman?"

Tyki groaned once again. "Yes and no. That's what I mean. I know that both sides of me," Tyki thought which word to use before ending his sentence, "wish to possess her. But it is impossible after all."

"Then, we get to the very core of your being. Were you merciful, you would do just that: take her life quickly, before she'd even realise she's dead. Before she would realise that the man she has fallen in love with does not exist." Cyril's mouth slit to a wide grin. "You can call yourself being crazy about her since you cannot bring yourself to kill her. But that doesn't make you a kind man, Tyki. You are a mad man if anything."

Tyki hummed looking at his hands. Then he lifted one of them up, staring at the palm.

"And tomorrow we will bring end to that madness."

"Yes," Cyril whispered somewhere in darkness, "and it will be a beautiful sight to look at."

Aislinn stared outside at the midday sun as she wondered how she could get her day pass faster so she could already be in a carriage towards Minister Kamelot's mansion. It was painful for her to even think about anything else, since back at her true home, monsters were roaming about.

If everything had gone as planned, Evan had left with Denzel and other Exorcists towards Sheelow early this morning, and they had probably been there for several hours by now. Aislinn crossed her fingers and prayed for their safe return, and that her parents and younger siblings would be safe as well. If she lost someone else after Bryanna...

Her thoughts went back to things and stories Bryanna had shared with her. It probably hadn't been one of her smartest moves, telling a young girl about monsters that lurk in the forests, but the stories had taught her to be careful, independent and slightly suspicious towards strangers.

Aislinn realised that even though she had seriously fallen for Tyki Mikk, there was still some sense of danger and darkness in him she couldn't just shrug off. To be fair, it sparked her curiousity just as much as it sparked her instincts of self-protection. And was that a good thing?

Aislinn frowned to herself. Had he ever explained why he had been in Sheelow at first, fixing the broken windows and roof of her home as a poor wanderer, just to appear next in Kelsley Manor as an almost prince-like figure?

Was it all a coincidence? Was Tyki just one of those quirky aristocrats, or was there something else?

The questions Aislinn made to herself disturbed her more than she wanted to admit. Tyki was a peculliar figure with his raven hair and mischievous smile, and all of a sudden Aislinn was almost afraid to even ask about things that confused her. What if the truth she found out would not be pleasant?

Then, as she watched one more train leave the station near her hotel and head towards the horizon, towards Sheelow, she finally made a decision.

She had to be brave as well. Just like Bryanna had been.


	14. Part 13

AUTHOR's WORDS: I'd like to apologize to everyone. I was supposed to publish this chapter over 6 months ago, but a terrible ordeal happened: I found myself unable to invent how things would go about in this chapter. Now, finally, I can give this chapter for you to read. Hope you'll like it, and sorry for the delay.

END OF AUTHOR'S WORDS.

"How's the veel?"

"Delicious, thank you," Aislinn replied as she put the fork and knife down on her plate. She had just finished eating and now eyed the three of them, sitting in the table with her: Cyril, his lovely wife Tricia, and of course Tyki, who was sitting right beside her.

He glanced at her and smirked a little, his golden eyes flashing in the candle light. The woman smiled back at him, feeling immense pleasure within.

"So, Ms. Aislinn," spoke Tricia with a soft, gentle voice, "how did you and Master Tyki meet?"

"I could say we already met back in Sheelow," Aislinn said a bit hesitantly, before adding with laughter, "but I suppose it's more truthful to say that we met in a ball held in the Kelsley Manor."

"Ah, yes," Cyril nodded, "my brother has a habit of going out time to time... Spending time with lower-class people, doing silly average tasks of average people. It was a big coincidence that the two of you met again."

Aislinn decided to ignore Cyril's notions about lower class and average people. Instead, she simply watched Minister Kamelot take a jug from his wine glass and smiled.

"Was it a coincidence?" she then inquired, turning to Tyki, who answered her glance with a smirk.

"What else could it have been?" Tyki sniggered, giving her a playful look. "Or would you prefer call it 'fate'?"

"Fate!" exclaimed Cyril enthusiastically and laughed. "How romantic! How poetic!"

"It certainly has a sort of eternal ring to it," Aislinn admitted with a small nod and a smile, looking at Tyki. The man smiled sheepishly before finishing his meal and putting his fork and knife down, just like Aislinn had done moments ago.

"I can tell something's on your mind", Tyki said, batting his lips with the napkin to wipe his mouth. He then looked at the fair woman next to himself and raised his brow. "Why don't you share your thoughts with us?"

Aislinn looked at him, sensing some kind of strange change in the man. "I do not believe in fate," she said, almost rebelliously, forcing her attention from Tyki and back to Minister Kamelot, who was watching the two of them intently.

"It is unsettling to think that things go a certain way no matter what one does, wouldn't you say?"

Even though it seemed that Tyki fully concentrated on folding his napkin, he listened to Aislinn carefully, expressionless. He felt too close to this matter.

"But wouldn't it be only good were things that way?" Cyril counter-attacked Aislinn's remark. "Fate doesn't only mean going one certain way without options; it also takes away the excuse to second-guess one's own choices. When one believes in fate, he can live in peace since no such things exist as bad choices. One is only walking the path that has already been decided for him."

"So do you believe in God?" Aislinn asked, almost making Cyril choke on his wine. The minister looked at her, half-amused, half-baffled.

"God, my dear?" Tricia asked, confused as well.

"You mentioned a path that has already been decided, Sir. Who decided it? God?" Aislinn's smile was slightly wary as Cyril gazed at her. "To believe in fate – to believe in this one path... Yes, it would take away the reason to second-guess one's own actions. But would have decided this path? If it was God, that would make him a dictator, wouldn't it? It would mean one does not have the ability to make his or her own choices, there would be no reason to have the ability to think and reconsider in the first place."

"For a country girl," Tricia noted softly, "you are not too religious, are you, Ms. Aislinn?"

"I simply believe in one's power to make their own decisions," Aislinn said as humbly as possible. "I think it is even a bit arrogant to think that everything's been decided already by some odd force of the world, when, I think, the world doesn't care one bit what happens to a single person."

Tyki listened to this conversation quietly, glancing at the young woman beside him, wondering what she would say if she knew the true nature of things. Tyki himself was pretty down-to-earth, and agreed with Aislinn that there was no grand force directing the happenings of every single person. Yet he found it bizarre that he'd bumped into the same woman so many times already and become so infatuated by her; the same woman whose sister he had murdered without an ounce of regret ages ago. He couldn't bring himself to think of it as a coincidence.

"How do you feel about surprising events then?" Tyki dared to inquire, making Aislinn turn her dark eyes on him. "You and I, for example. We've parted ways many times and met just as many times again. Isn't that fate?"

Aislinn smiled, gently. "I would call those accidents. Pleasant ones, of course, but accidents nevertheless. And in accidents lie the excitement, tragedy and beauty of a human life. One can never know what happens next."

The moment he heard her answer, Tyki couldn't help but laugh. Accidents! It was true, if this was all an accident all along, just like a person might trip and fall over to hurt himself, this surely showed the bittersweet taste of human life!

Cyril sniggered to himself as well, seeing the dark humour behind this just like Tyki did.

"You are not too religious," he echoed his wife's words before adding, "but I dare to say that is the reason for you to be so smart, lady Aislinn."

His wife and him had just finished their meals, and as the waiters stepped forward and collected the plates, Tricia let out a soft whimper. Cyril looked at her, worried.

"Are you not feeling well, my darling?" he inquired, and the woman sighed and shook her head. "No... I'm sorry, my lord," she sighed and looked at Aislinn with a gentle expression. "I hope you may forgive me, Ms. Aislinn, I hate to leave you..."

"Of course you will go to rest," Aislinn hurried to say. "It was a pleasure to meet you, lady Tricia."

As Cyril's wife stood up, the two men in the room mimicked her out of politeness. After Tricia had exited the room, Cyril turned back to Aislinn, smiling apologetically.

"I am very sorry, my dear. Tricia's always been sickly, and she gets nauseous fairly easily."

"I don't mind at all," Aislinn said with a small albeit slightly uneasy smile. She hadn't expected to be left alone with both Minister Kamelot and Tyki. "I hope she will feel better soon."

They moved to the lounge, where one of the maids had already set a tray with two bottles of finest cognac and brandy and crystal clear glasses on the side.

Tyki moved to the window, glancing outside. It was already getting dark. He felt someone gently brush his arm, and when he looked up he saw Cyril, going past him, smirking slightly.

Tyki was one hundred percent sure that Tricia hadn't suddenly got nauseous and left purely out of luck. He was certain Cyril had done his share to remove his wife away from the main stage...

Tyki turned his head. He saw Aislinn taking a seat and directing her eyes towards the fireplace. The dancing flames shone their gentle light on her face, her neckline and that auburn hair she had collected up on her head.

Cyril sat into an armchair opposite to her. "Tell me, Miss Aislinn... this home town of yours... Sheelow, was it?"

Aislinn blinked her eyes and looked at him. "Yes?"

"I've heard some unsettling news that there's been a storm raging about. Surely you would wish to return your family and make sure everything is all right?" Cyril's voice was deceivingly worried, as if he had cared about her thoughts.

She shifted her eyes and by doing so told the two Noahs that she knew exactly what was going on in there.

"Your brother came to see you earlier, didn't he?" Tyki inquired, moving to the tray and pouring himself a drink. He figured a shot of alcohol might loosen him up a bit.

"Yes. My older brother Evan works as a priest in Sheelow," Aislinn explained to Cyril. "He came to see if I was all right and told me to stay put until things would quiet down at home. Apparently the storm's been wrecking places ever since I left..."

"You must be worried sick," Cyril said, and the woman nodded.

"I am... Not only my parents, but three of my younger siblings are there... Evan assured me they are safe, but..."

"But one never knows what could happen," Cyril ended her sentence, making her frown.

"Stop it," Tyki spoke then, offering his brother a glass of brandy. "You are scaring her."

"No, I'm fine," Aislinn hurried to say, "it is true after all. One never knows what could happen."

Silence fell upon them for a moment and nothing but the crackling sound of burning wood filled the air. Aislinn looked at the flames, feeling herself become hypnotized by them. And at the same time, she felt uneasy. The questions she had thought ready last night were building up inside of her, and she moved her lips, trying to form a proper sentence.

"Tyki..." she finally managed to say.

"What is it?" the young man inquired as he sat on a small sofa and crossed his long, slender legs.

"Did you ever explain to me why you wander around dressed as a tramp?"

Tyki looked at her, only to face her serious expression.

"It's a quirk of mine," he told simply.

"To walk around, eat badly and work average tasks of average people for food and some shelter?"

"Is there suddenly something wrong with that?" he asked, this time a bit bluntly. The woman lowered her eyes; a strand of her hair fell from her bun and landed on her shoulder. Tyki felt burning passion to reach out and touch that lock of hair.

"It's a bit abnormal to say the least," Aislinn said softly.

The Noah of Pleasure didn't like this at all. Her sudden questions about his identity were like a big exclamation mark for him and Cyril to make their move – but was he honestly prepared for that?

He sighed and glanced Cyril, who fortunately seemed to be suffering from an after-dinner bliss. He was full and he was happy; there was no reason to rush into things.

"I cannot argue with you," Tyki coolly admitted, taking a sip from his glass. "It is unheard of; to be a man with aristocratic roots who wanders around as a tramp."

"Do you have some kind of need to be different?" Aislinn inquired, looking at him with an unknown expression. It was as if she had wanted to see into his soul. "Some sort of passion to forget your life as a noble?"

Tyki looked into the fire. How was she able to do that... to make the right questions.

"You have no idea," he murmured.

"Wouldn't it be easier for you to just change something so you wouldn't have to live these two different lives? Because... it's a scam, really, isn't it? That's how I see it, at least. You are lying to people you meet because of your other life."

These words woke up something inside of Tyki. Something dark was moving within him, he felt it as strongly as if someone had been grasping his insides.

Grinning, Tyki tilted his head lightly as he looked at Aislinn once more. "It is not a scam, my dear," he said, and Cyril noticed the obvious change in his voice; how it had turned velvety and even, as if he hadn't cared one bit what Aislinn said or thought.

Cyril smiled, secretly. The curtain had begun to rise.

"I am what I am, and I live as I wish. Being a hobo once in a while isn't a crime. Sometimes I want to be someone else for a change. Do something else."

Aislinn's eyes narrowed, and her tone had turned softer. "Why? Are you not happy being just one person?"`

"On the contrary," Tyki sneered, eyeing the brandy in his glass, "I am extremely happy, either way. I want the pros of both lives, my dear, I thought you understood that."

Aislinn sneered with a small shrug. "How one-sided."

"I suppose you could say that. I am a man of pleasure, after all." Tyki grinned and saw Aislinn's face flush with colour. Her expression was like fuel to the fire; Tyki could feel that raw force inside of him move like a beast stretching its muscles. That violent, dark force that wanted nothing good for Aislinn Riggs. It wanted despair; tears of pain; the ultimate power to possess that fragile mortal being and not let go until he'd be done with her.

He took in the image of her fair skin; dark eyes that were directed right at him; the auburn hair that framed her face like a red halo in the light of the fireplace. The dark force withdrew itself for a second; he felt torn in two.

"I told you, a couple of days ago," Tyki said, this time in a far gentler manner, "that you steal my attention, whenever we meet."

She looked slightly intimidated, even embarrassed that Tyki was saying such things with Cyril in the room. "Are you sure this is the right time to say such things?" she whispered.

"This can't be postponed," Tyki said quietly, setting the brandy glass aside on the tray. He stood up, her eyes following his face as he looked down at her. Tyki knelt beside her sitting figure and wiped that strand of hair behind her ear.

"I have excellent insticts," he said, stroking her flushed cheek with his thumb. "I always know when something wonderful is close. And here you are, in my hands... a sister of an Exorcist."

He could almost hear how she stopped breathing. She pulled back suddenly in her chair, her eyes wide with shock. "How did you know?!"

" The beloved of an Exorcist," Tyki continued, standing up again, his eyes fixated on her horrified face. "The sister of Evan Riggs, an ally of the Black Order... Really, now... Can you not call us lucky? You will be very useful to us, Aislinn..."

His skin began to change and lose all the vibrant colour of life from it, changing into ashen colour. Aislinn stared at him in horror, unable to stand up as the man in front of her turned into Noah; his temples printed with scars, his eyes bright golden colour.

She heard a sneer and turned her eyes at Cyril, who was, just like Tyki, now grey-skinned and looking at the two of them with great amusement.

"You cannot-" Aislinn began to shout but immediately her lips were sealed, as if by magic. Little did she know that Cyril had weaved his web of strings and silenced her without difficulties.

"'I cannot be serious'?" Tyki sneered, wide grin spreading on his face. "'I cannot do this'?"

He definitely felt better. His true form calmed him down, cleared his thoughts. This was the skin he knew and loved the most.

"Aislinn, darling, why do you think we stopped by your house in Sheelow? Agreed to escort you to Brunsdane? Out of gratitude? You didn't even know when you were already caught by us."

He glanced down at her and smiled softly. "All those moments... so delicately planned, weren't they? The ball... The midnight walk... The lunch date... I am a good actor am I not? One has to be when hunting down silly girls like you."

Tears had risen up and were making Aislinn's eyes glisten. She wasn't able to scream but she sobbed, shaking her head in disgust.

Tyki felt peaceful. This was the right order of things.

"You will work as the final chesspiece in this game," the Noah sniggered. "Your sister was the first. And finally, after all these years, we can end this game in the bloodshed we deserve."

Smiling, Tyki sat back on the sofa, looking at Aislinn and the tears that were streaming down her face now.

"We'll see if you make as a beautiful corpse as your sister did, my darling," he said with that velvet voice.


	15. Part 14

AUTHOR's NOTE: Hello all my loyal readers, and thank you for putting up with me and my "schedule". For a few months I haven't updated this story, for I was battling how to continue in this chapter. Now, however, I managed to write something I'm happy with, so I hope you enjoy this new chapter and will wait for the next part! ^-^

A young woman had thought that the death of her sibling had taught her something about life in exchange.

Over seven years before the fated meeting of Tyki Mikk, the Noah of Pleasure, and Aislinn Riggs of Sheelow, Bryanna Riggs had been on watch deep inside a nameless forest.

Tyki had been there with his troops of Akuma as well. Huge monsters with eyes the size of plates had howered above the tree tops; slithering creatures with immense sense of hearing had stomped in the woods on lookout for Exorcists.

And Tyki Mikk had moved in the middle of them like the Master Death itself, clad in a tuxedo and a top hat, his velvety black hair slid back and golden eyes glimmering in the dark.

A village so much like Sheelow had been turned into ruins. A squad of Exorcists had fought with the Akuma and then escaped to the woods, calling for back-up. Many had died, both Akuma and humans. Some had been able to evacuate into safety – yet Tyki had gone after the remaining Exorcists of the Black Order.

Innocences were waiting to be destroyed. Humans were waiting to be killed. A lit cig between his lips, Tyki had found the hideout of Exorcists – and when Akuma had charged for attack under Tyki's command, Bryanna Riggs had been the one to counter-attack. And she had been marvellous, no doubt about that.

They had just been outnumbered.

When the other squad of Exorcists, of which Denzel Kelsley had been a part of, got to the scene, it was all over already. They had hoped to find survivors, but only a sea of corpses had been left behind.

Tyki was certain that things would turn out like this again. He wasn't one bit worried about it. Why would he? What would it mean to him anyway? He had seen many corpses, hell, he had been the one to create many corpses! Bryanna Riggs wasn't the only one whose blood stained Tyki's white gloves. The only reason he had even remembered her was because of Aislinn's dark, luminous eyes...

Besides... What would it change if he tried to explain?

"I'm afraid you got tangled up in something dangerous because of me. The time we spent together was great fun, but I can't help it anymore."

It would sound so pathetic and be so futile. He was a murderer. Even a god wouldn't be able to wash away such a truth.

His Noah skin was his best suit. It helped him lie with ease.

Aislinn, tied and made soundless by Cyril's strings, had been transported into a room upstairs of the Kamelot mansion and locked there. Tyki had been standing outside her room ever since, leaning against the wall and smoking. The Earl would arrive soon enough, after midnight. There was still a couple of hours left.

He glanced at the locked door. The room was windowless, there was no escape. Using their dark powers, the two Noahs had tied her down permanently by using dark materia, tying her arms and legs and even covered her mouth.

Wondering if he lacked any sense of self-protection or was he just a plain sadist, Tyki slid through the wall as if it didn't even exist and ended up stepping into the small servant's room, with dusty floors and a poor gas light hanging from the ceiling.

There was a desk, a chair and a small bed set in the corner of the room, and there laid Aislinn. Tyki noticed immediately that in these short hours she had spent in this room, she had already moved past the shock and progressed straight into hatred. Her blue eyes seemed almost black now, with the power of immense anger set into her glance.

With every fiber of her being she despised him.

By seeing this, Tyki felt strange calmness creep into his pitch-black Noah soul.

He let out a sigh, as if she was being unreasonable.

"Honestly. Don't give me such a look. If you are so easily enticed I can say the blame is all on you. How could I turn away when a woman such as yourself approaches me?"

He sneered and approached the bed on which she was lying.

"Especially when a woman with such a background approaches me..."

She was, if possible, looking more beautiful than ever in Tyki's eyes. His dark side, which had been whispering to him ever since he had felt Aislinn against himself in the Riggs' bathroom, was now taking the best of him.

Getting a surprised and unhappy groan out of Aislinn, Tyki sat down on the bed, right beside her. They watched each other for a moment; one with eyes of hatred, other keeping an unreadable calm expression.

"You are beautiful," Tyki then broke the silence with his gentle voice. He noticed the immediate flush of colour on the young woman's face – and how much such an honest reaction annoyed her. She looked like she wanted to speak out – too bad she couldn't, thanks to the dark materia around her mouth.

"Remember, back in Sheelow when I said that you seemed like a porcelain doll? Fair-skinned young lady with dark eyes and auburn hair... Yet there was something strange about you."

She had instinctively pulled away from Tyki when he had sat down beside her, until her back had met the wall. Her anger transformed into disgust now; a shiver went down her spine and tears dwelled in her eyes when Tyki reached out and gently brushed the side of her face with his fingers.

"Even though you were just a sister of an Exorcist," he continued with an even, velvety voice, "who my little minions had melt into a crisp so many years ago, I couldn't help myself playing with you a bit." His fingertips were tingling as he touched her skin. "Can you blame me, really? ...Haha, judging by your expression, you can."

He sniggered, leaning slightly closer. "When we danced... Not in that hideous ball but in that little night cafe, I felt it again. Some kind of invisible force, pressing us against each other. You felt it too, didn't you? ...Ah, I can see it. Even if you are mad at me right now, you cannot deny that there was something between us two."

He slid his hand from her cheek and onto her throat. He didn't apply any pressure, just held it there as if he was ready to strangle her if she gave him a reason for it. She stayed completely still and simply stared at Tyki's face. He felt her pulse against his palm.

He thought of the hanging birch and the rustle of leaves. The wind freeing a strand of hair from Aislinn's hairbun – the warmth of her lips.

Letting go of her throat, he tilted her chin up. Her eyes widened and got a look of despair in them. With a small movement of his hand, the dark materia covering Aislinn's mouth dissolved, only to be replaced by Tyki's lips.

She let out a horrified squeal into the kiss but Tyki wouldn't let her go. Almost violently he took advantage of her shock, pressing their mouths against each other. His hand found her neck and brought her close to him, his tongue already rubbing against hers and his free hand caressing her bare shoulder.

As she finally snapped out of her shock she bit down – hard. Disappointed, Tyki did nothing else but pulled back – and his tongue slid through her teeth.

"My little Noah trick," he explained with a cocky smirk. "I can go right through what I wish – and what I wish goes right through me, as well. Now then, darling..."

The hand holding her shoulder now pressed her down, against the bed. Tyki loomed above her, casting a shadow that made her eyes seem black.

He smiled slightly. "Don't try to steal the fun from me, it won't work anyway-"

"Was Eaze just a trick too?"

Tyki blinked, surprised. Oh right. He had removed the gag.

"What?"

"Eaze!" she almost spat at him. "The little boy I saved from drowning! You said you owed me! Was that also set up by you?"

"Er, not exactly-" he spoke out before thinking.

"Did you know in advance that I wanted to find Denzel?!"

"What are you doing, making stupid questions-"

"I know you didn't!" she shouted enraged. "I saved Eaze and you came to ask if I wanted something in return. It was _my_ choice to ask you to take me to Brunsdane! You didn't manipulate me to ask that – you wanted to return a favour without any back-up plans!"

Tyki stared at her with wide eyes.

"When I met you in the ball, you saved me from Denzel when he assaulted me – wouldn't that have caused enough hatred and misery if you had just let him rape me?" Her eyes were flaring. "But you saved me! Took me out for a dance! And-"

Suddenly her voice died. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. But Tyki knew what she was thinking. That day they had shared their first kiss, in the shadows of that hanging birch. He was, for once, unable to find any words.

"You were a Noah all along... you killed my sister, even if you didn't do it by your own hands, you ordered Akuma to kill her. I doubt you even knew her name or where she lived. Years passed... and then you appeared on our porch."

She sniffed and inhaled, willing herself not to cry. "You helped us out a lot... Even decided to accompany me to another city with your friends. Didn't you feel anything at that time?"

Tyki looked away.

"Before I even came to Brunsdane, it had already begun, isn't that so? Tyki..." she whispered, her dark eyes glistening with tears of betrayal and hurt. "I can't forgive you, ever, for taking my sister away from me. But how can you come to me and claim that this everything else was a lie as well?"

She groaned, hopeless. "I don't believe that... Tell me it isn't so...!"

There was a soft sneer.

"You are actually a lot more pathetic than I thought."

When Tyki turned his face back to Aislinn again, something was wrong with his face – he had the grin of a monster. A scream stuck in her throat when he gripped her, this time with much more force than before – the passion of a man replaced by the ferocity of a beast. The way he gripped her throat now sapped her breath.

"Tyki...!" she gasped, horrified.

"You are a little lovelorn, aren't you." Tyki gave a laugh and then let out a pleased sigh, as his eyes wondered down her face, her chest, her body...

"Yes, I have felt something similar, ever since I laid my eyes on you... That 'something' between us two..." His lips brushed hers as she was trying to get some air despite his malevolent grip. "It wasn't love, my dear."

With that he released her throat and pulled her up by the hair, making her she yelp in pain. "Stop it-!"

"Your heart – do you want to give it to me so eagerly?" Tyki sniggered as his free hand – the one that wasn't gripping her hair – pressed against her left breast. He moved it in a couple of brief, massaging movements – making his grin only grow – before his hand pressed right though her skin.

Her mouth opened but there was no sound. She met his golden eyes in terror as he stared back at her, his fingers through her skin, her fat and flesh, ribcage – ready to grasp her beating heart.

"You offer it to me. After all of this, you want me to have it?"

"No," she whispered – it was not much of an answer but a denial of what was happening.

His laughter was quiet; she felt his breath on the nape of her neck. She couldn't move, she was afraid to breathe.

"Aislinn..."

"No..."

"I am holding your heart. I could grab it and pull it out of you, for you to see."

"Tyki, please..."

"That special something we felt..." he said with a dark voice. "Would you like me to name it?"

Tormentingly slow, his hand pulled out and returned to massage her left breast.

"Lust," he whispered, before he leaned over and kissed her neck. She squirmed weakly, but his grip on her hair was firm and caused her pain. Another wave of disgust shot over her as he laid kisses on her neck, and the tears streamed down her cheeks.

He wanted to untie her hands, but knew it wouldn't be wise.

"No..." she sobbed. "It is not lust... I'm in love with you."


	16. Part 15

"I'm in love with you."

Had he not heard similar words before, from aristrocratic ladies and the like? For years, years that now seemed to mush into one flash of faces, sounds and smells, he had heard of love, talked of it, seen what it does and what it causes.

How many people had been turned into Akuma by the Millennium Earl just for the feeble act of love? "Bring me back my dear husband, my mother, my wife, my child, my lover..."

So much suffering for such a simple feeling. And now, it would be her turn.

"You are in love?" he repeated after a moment, his harsh stare still upon Aislinn's weeping face. Accompanied by mocking laughter, his lips curved into a grin. "And why do you think it has something to do with me?"

"What-"

The scream that escaped her lungs didn't make a muscle move on his face as he tore open the bosom of her dress, revealing the underdress and the corset.

"A little lovelorn, like I said," he sniggered as he brushed the nape of her neck with his lips. She trembled. "You can close your eyes and pretend that things are going as you planned. Imagine we are in love. Love me."

She was shaking when the man's hand slid up her other thigh under the thick hemlines of her dress. She shook her head in slight panic, her cheeks wet with tears, begging:

"Tyki, please, don't-! No!"

"You have no idea how long I have wanted to do this." It felt like his fingertips were on fire as his hands slid on Aislinn's skin. He was craving to touch and taste her, even if somewhere in the back of his head there was a tiny voice, telling him to back off while he still could. Otherwise it might turn ugly.

He sneered. What was he thinking... this was already ugly.

His lips brushed her throat before he lay a kiss on her collar bone, despite her trying to squirm away. His fingers clasped her thigh, strong enough to cause bruises.

As he raised his face a bit, he saw her expression. She was not looking at him anymore; she couldn't.

"Look at me," he ordered. When she didn't obey, Tyki released the grip on her thigh and grasped her chin instead, forcing her to turn her face. "Open your eyes," he said calmly.

Slowly, hesitantly, she opened her eyes and looked at him, fresh tears sliding down her cheeks.

"I killed your sister," he said firmly, with sharpness in his voice. She tried to turn her face away but he turned it right back towards him. "And by using you, I will kill that stupid aristocratic Exorcist and all his comrades as well."

"Denzel...!"

"Your home village will be attacked again." He kept talking calmly. "Soon its muddy streets will be covered with dead bodies. Your family and friends dead and savaged, your home and town in ruins."

"How can you do this..."

"I am a Noah, my dear," he stated simply, "I thought you had already understood that much. After all of this, how can you possibly long for my love? Are you even listening to me? Or are you just too stupid to get it through your skull?"

He leaned in closer, looming above her face with a grin. "And why didn't I let that aristocratic brat take you by force...?" His fingers caressed the side of her thigh ominously. "I'm a man of patience. Had I not saved you back then, you think we would be here now?"

She was shivering under his touch and looked mortified. He chuckled softly, his voice seeming soothing and distant to her. "You made a lovely little chess piece, my darling Aislinn," he said almost gently, as his long fingers slid to the inner side of her thigh and touched her between the legs. She jolted up and made a frantic attempt to headbutt him but he was faster and pushed her down immediately.

"I'm going to teach you what it means," he whispered, his fingers finding their place between her legs, "when a complete darkness takes over you. All of your dreams and hopes sink into the abyss of the lost. I'll take you there personally and make sure you never recover."

Her eyes fluttered, the fear being too much for her. She hadn't inhaled in ages but taken small swift and scared gasps that now only made her dizzy. Dark materia was swirling around her throat.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and next she lied still.

Tyki looked at her fainted body for a moment. He leaned in and pressed a kiss on her coo lips, before getting up from the bed and straightening his jacket. He heard the girl let out a small whimper in her nightmares, but he didn't turn back to look at her.

He walked through the wall like a ghost that he now felt like he was.


End file.
